Mining In East Region: Haphazard Operations Imperil Residents

The richness of the subsoil of the East Region is currently doing more harm than good to residents of the area, and the trend is likely to continue should government fail to adopt more stringent control mechanisms of mining activities in Cameroon; a study has revealed.

The study (Environmental Degradation and Sustainable Land Management of Gold Mining Sites in Eastern Cameroon) is a three-year research project carried out by Dr. Marc Anselme Kamga, a Cameroonian environmental management scholar with the Pan African University Life and Earth Sciences Institute at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Dr. Kamga told Cameroon Tribune in an interview that despite the economic reinforce ment and financial support for educational development impelled by mining activities in the region; villages within active mining areas are more impacted negatively as 75% of students are abandoning schools for mining.

His study also reveals high levels of prostitution, overexploitation of women, high prevalence of HIV around mining sites and low farm activities. It says companies abandon sites after mineral exploitation, failing to rehabilitate them as required by the law.

Local administrative authorities involved in the study also disclosed that gold mining is fuelling deforestation, silting of river beds, killing of aquatic ecosystems, toxic substances pollute the environment, destroying arable lands and partially destroying protected areas.

On the other hand, there is extension of mining sites to lands used by communities for agriculture, pasture, fisheries and hunting. Meanwhile, the unauthorised use of high concentrations of heavy metals such as Chromium, Copper, Lead, Cadmium and Arsenic is equally contaminating water sources and soils on which uns...