By Tinotenda Bhunu
HARARE – THERE are some journeys that leave you with more questions than answers. My recent trip to Kamhonde, in Makonde District, Mashonaland West, was one such journey.
Over the past week, I had an opportunity to travel to Kamhonde. What began as an ordinary journey became an uncomfortable encounter with realities that are often discussed in policy meetings but rarely appreciated until one sees them firsthand.
My journey eventually took me to the Sanyati River. What I witnessed there was difficult to reconcile with the idea that natural resources are supposed to improve the welfare of the communities in which they are found.
Along the river, I encountered young children engaged in gold panning. These were not children enjoying the freedom of childhood. They were participating in an activity that appeared to be driven by economic necessity, trying to secure something of value from the river to help sustain their families. It was a heartbreaking sight.
A river that should support agriculture, provide water, and sustain livelihoods had become a place where children were searching for gold. Their presence raised a difficult question: what circumstances push a child towards mining instead of school, and what does that tell us about the economic conditions of the household?
Yet there was another side to what I observed.
Mining activities, including those involving foreign operators whom locals associate with our friends of the East, appeared to be putting additional pressure on the river and its surrounding environment. The disturbance of riverbanks, excavation and the visible effects of mining raise serious questions about environmental protection, regulatory oversight and accountability.
There is something deeply troubling about this contradiction. At one end of the river, children are searching for gold because their families need to survive. At the other, mining activities are extracting value from the same natural resource, with potentially lasting consequences for the surrounding community.
The question is not whether Zimbabwe should mine gold. The question is whether the extraction of gold is improving the lives of the people who live alongside the resources, or leaving them with the environmental costs.
When poverty becomes an economic institution
Child involvement in artisanal and small-scale mining cannot be understood simply as a matter of individual choice. It must be examined within the economic circumstances that shape household decisions.
For a family struggling to meet basic needs, the immediate value of a few grams of gold may appear more important than the long-term benefits of keeping a child in school.
This does not make child labour acceptable. Rather, it illustrates how poverty can narrow the choices available to households.
When parents cannot find reliable employment, when rural economic opportunities remain limited and when household incomes are insufficient, children can become part of the household’s survival strategy.
The policy response, therefore, cannot end with removing children from mining sites. It must also address the economic conditions that make their participation possible.
There must be stronger household livelihood opportunities, access to education, employment creation and support for communities that depend on natural resources.
A child should not have to choose between attending school and helping their family put food on the table.
The economics of environmental destruction
Gold is a valuable resource, but its value cannot be measured exclusively by the price it commands on the market.
A river has economic value beyond the minerals beneath its bed. It supports agriculture, livestock, households, biodiversity and other economic activities. Its value is shared across generations.
When mining destroys riverbanks, damages water systems or leaves land degraded, the costs do not necessarily appear on the balance sheet of the mining operator.
Instead, they are transferred to ordinary people.
Farmers may face reduced agricultural productivity. Households may experience deteriorating water quality. Communities may lose access to resources that previously sustained their livelihoods.
This is an economic problem as much as it is an environmental one.
In economics, this is commonly understood as a negative externality: the private benefits of an economic activity are enjoyed by the operator, while some of its costs are imposed on third parties.
The problem becomes particularly serious when environmental regulations exist but are not adequately enforced.
Mining cannot be considered economically productive if its immediate returns are accompanied by long-term damage that communities are left to absorb.
The question of accountability
Zimbabwe has an interest in attracting mining investment. Gold contributes to export earnings, employment, foreign currency generation and economic activity.
But investment should not be treated as an exemption from the rules that protect the public interest.
Whether an operator is locally owned or foreign-owned, the same basic obligations should apply. Environmental standards, licensing requirements, rehabilitation obligations and protections against child labour must be enforced consistently.
Foreign investment is welcome when it contributes to productive economic activity. But the nationality of an investor should neither determine the standards applied nor excuse environmental violations.
The presence of foreign capital should strengthen local economic opportunities, not weaken the rights of communities to a safe environment and sustainable livelihoods.
Equally, artisanal miners should not simply be treated as criminals while larger operators escape scrutiny. Regulation must be impartial, transparent and proportionate.
If the state has the capacity to collect royalties and licensing fees from mining activities, it must also demonstrate the capacity to monitor those activities and hold operators accountable.
Beyond extracting gold
The experience at Sanyathi River raises a broader question about Zimbabwe’s approach to natural resource management.
For years, the country has spoken about mineral wealth as a foundation for economic development. But mineral wealth alone does not guarantee prosperity.
The quality of institutions, the security of property rights, the enforcement of environmental standards and the distribution of economic opportunities determine whether natural resources become an asset or a liability.
There is a need to strengthen environmental monitoring, ensure that mining operators rehabilitate affected areas, formalise artisanal mining where appropriate and establish effective mechanisms for community participation.
Local communities must also have a meaningful voice in decisions concerning the natural resources around them. They should not merely be spectators while the economic value of their surroundings is extracted.
Most importantly, the authorities must investigate the conditions at Sanyathi River and establish the extent of the environmental damage, the legality of the mining activities and the circumstances that have brought children into gold panning.
These are not questions that can be answered through political statements or occasional enforcement exercises. They require sustained institutional accountability.
What remains after the gold is gone?
As I left Sanyathi River, I could not help thinking about the children I had seen.
Gold may eventually run out. Mining operators may move to another location. But the children will remain, as will the communities that depend on the river.
What happens when the gold is exhausted but the river is no longer capable of supporting the livelihoods it once sustained?
What happens when the immediate economic gains have been realised, but the environmental costs are left behind for future generations?
These are questions Zimbabwe must confront if its mineral wealth is to become a foundation for development rather than another source of economic and environmental vulnerability.
The purpose of mining should not simply be to extract what lies beneath the ground or within our rivers. It should be to create lasting economic opportunities without destroying the foundations on which other livelihoods depend.
A country cannot claim to benefit from its natural resources when its children are forced to search for gold to survive and its communities risk losing the rivers that sustain them.
Perhaps the most important lesson from my journey to Kamhonde is this: the true measure of mineral wealth is not how much gold we extract, but what remains for the people when the extraction is over.
Tinotenda Bhunu is an economist by profession. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinotenda-bhunu-114645208?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app
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