Sand poaching —  When scarring the environment becomes a collective conspiracy Mrs Amkela Sidange

Vincent Gono, Features Editor
FROM a distance, one cannot miss the cloud of dust that is raised into the cool wintry air by sand-filled, ramshackle seven-tonne trucks, known in town as “Wrong turn,” hurtling on a strip of tar that is thinning into a dust road just after Pumula High School.

In natural unison, the brown earth, dry grass and leafless trees fade into an organised settlement as one enters Methodist Village, a peri-urban compound on the outskirts of Bulawayo a few kilometres after Pumula North suburb.

The village is part of the sprawling Ward 17 under the jurisdiction of Bulawayo City Council (BCC) and has more than 100 homesteads and an estimated population of more than 1 000 people, at least according to Clr Sikhululekile Moyo.

Clr Sikhululekile Moyo

It is an area where the environment is losing the war to the community in quick motion and what is disturbing is that no-one seems to care. The community has conspired and normalised sand poaching and it no longer looks illegal.

Young and energetic men from within the village have invaded different parts of the community as if with a vengeance.

Daily, they swarm the different parts like locusts, digging everywhere from villagers’ yards to fields with unrestrained arrogance and reckless abandon. One can be forgiven for thinking that they have won a tender to construct a river.

A visit to the area by Chronicle last Wednesday revealed one of the worst cases of environmental degradation a single area can endure. Gullies have been created that are capable of injuring not only people but domestic and wild animals.

The activities of sand poachers have destroyed not only roads but also the connection of such services as water to more than 1 000 villagers and yet they continue with the activities. A pipe that supplies water to the village has been dug out and vandalised and now the area relies on water supplied by council bowsers.

The worst case is that of 66-year-old Mr Fred Ncube whose two-roomed house collapsed after sand poachers dug near it.

“I had a two-roomed house that had a corrugated iron roof but it collapsed after sand poachers dug through my yard,” he said.

Mr Ncube said most of the young people who were digging were from the village.

“They were almost ten and there was nothing I could do. I am old and they will be drunk and so menacing. They are capable of harming, even killing you,” he said.

“They are so daring,” he added, hinting that the activities were no longer looking illegal as they dig in daylight.

Chronicle also came face to face with the poachers who attempted to run away and only spoke to the news crew from a distance.

 

With a shovel and a bucket, the two said they were trying to make an ‘‘honest’’ living as they were not robbing anyone but nature.

“Life is difficult. There is no employment out there, so we are digging and selling mostly river sand. It is the one on demand. We get $20 for a seven-tonne truck. And with that amount I can pay school fees for my kids,” said one sand poacher who refused to disclose his name.

“We know the dangers to the environment but we have no option. This is our gold and we are benefiting,” he added
Methodist residents’ chairman Mr Makoni Sibanda said the sand poaching activities have become an ignored illegality that was fast turning into a community lifestyle.

 

He lamented the environment degradation and the idea that the activities were isolating the village from the whole world as infrastructure like roads that connect the village to the city were all under threat.

He intimated that the sand poaching activities were not done by people from town but by young men from the village.

“The people are not from town. They are our children. They are from within this community and we know them.

Their excuse for doing that is that there is no employment. We report cases but there are always no meaningful arrests. We believe it’s because of corruption,” he added.

Environment degradation

He said the water situation was dire ever since the pipe that supplies the village with water was vandalised adding the sand poaching menace was now beyond the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), BCC and the police as they have been ineffective in dealing with it.

“Women and girls are made to wake up very early — around 4AM to queue for water at the vandalised pipe and in this cold weather one cannot help but feel for them. This problem now needs effective interventions, council, police and EMA have failed,” he said.

Ms Blessed Moyo who was getting water from the vandalised pipe said they were facing a difficult time. She said at times they would make a fire to keep warm as they wait for their turn to get the water as the whole village was getting water from the pipe.

“We do not have a single borehole in village and the bowser doesn’t come every day. So, for some of us with young children it’s a challenge. We have to come and queue for water here as early as 4AM and it’s painful. These days it’s cold,” she said.

Ms Nobuhle Ncube, who is pregnant, lamented the disruption caused by sand poaching to water supply saying she is forced to wake up like any other woman to queue for water.

“There is no special treatment on the basis of pregnancy. Everyone would want to go back home and do other chores and besides it’s cold. Today there is no queue because the bowser supplied yesterday but on the day when the bowser would not have come everyone will be here,” she said.

Clr Moyo confirmed the loss of Mr Ncube’s house and the problem of water triggered by sand poaching activities and said council was working to restore normal water delivery to the three villages supplied from the vandalised pipe which are Methodist, Mazwi and St Peter’s.

“It is true that one resident lost a house to sand poachers but that was some time ago. Currently we have challenges of water after sand poachers dug out and damaged an underground pipe supplying water to the villages.

“The road that connects the village to town through Luveve was also dug where the bridge ends and the gullies that are forming are scary and are isolating the village from the rest of the world.

“It’s worrying but we are trying to make sure we stop the activities,” said Clr Moyo.

EMA corporate communications officer Mrs Amkela Sidange said the loss of key infrastructure just outside Bulawayo due to sand poaching was quite worrisome and the agency was seized with the matter.

She said the demand for sand continues to rise most probably due to the continued development of infrastructure in towns and cities.

“This has fuelled sand poaching. But that is not what it should be because the laws are quite straightforward on the issue of sand mining.

Sand mining

“Local authorities should designate points for sand mining to allow activities to be done in a manner regulated and that is not harmful to the integrity of the environment as well as public health,” said Mrs Sidange.

She said communities in peri-urban areas like Methodist Village anchor as resource areas for sand mining and were always at the mercy of sand poachers.

She said it was unfortunate that communities were not eager to give out valuable information that could assist in finding a lasting solution in efforts to make follow ups leading to necessary sensitisation and or prosecution.

“Communities are discrete with information and we continue calling out to such communities to co-operate and protect their resources as they are the custodians of these resources as outlined in the principles of community-based natural resource management,” said Mrs Sidange.

She said a recent nationwide blitz covering the major hotspots outside Bulawayo yielded about seven offenders who included those who were transporting sand without a licence and those that were found in possession of sand and failing to account how they got the sand and, in most cases, also the sand was on sale meaning they were having possession of sand without a licence from the agency.

“For the people that are doing the digging it was difficult to get a single one because they would flee the moment they realise there are law enforcement agencies approaching and that is why I am saying it’s a cat and mouse business which actually shouldn’t be like that.

“As a people we need to realise that it doesn’t assist in any way for us to keep on ducking in and out but each one of us should self-police as an individual. We should self-regulate ourselves ensuring that whatever activity or whatever form of development that we are doing is done in a manner that does not harm the environment,” she added.

Mrs Sidange said they also impounded trucks that were found transporting sand without licences and warned the public to realise that the country was losing much valuable land, that could be used for agriculture, settlement, mining, infrastructure development and any other several economic uses.

“The last survey that we did revealed that about 1 900 hectares of land has been degraded due to sand poaching and this is not good for us as a country taking to consideration that there are some global objectives or global aspirations that we need to achieve as well as national aspirations.”

She said the country was a signatory to the United Nations convection to combat desertification and have domesticated that convention such that it also has its own land degradation targets.

“We are a country that is trying to achieve land degradation neutrality meaning that we want to reduce land degradation.

“For as long as we have sand poaching, we will fail to fulfil the global and national aspirations that directly talk to our daily survival, our economic growth, and any other basic form of development we can think of,” she added.

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