Susanna Solomon is still tending her shamba, but she won’t eat the harvest from her farm when it’s ready.

Locals around Barrick Gold's North Mara Gold Mine say contaminated water is giving them health problems and killing plants and animals. Credit: Jessie Boylan/IPS

Solomon, 55, has been farming here near Nyangoto village, in Tanzania’s rural Tarime district for a long time.

“I was farming rice before,” she said, “but I can’t anymore because of the chemicals.”

Solomon’s farm was contaminated by a leak in May from Barrick Gold’s North Mara mine – just 100 metres away. In large sections, the grass has completely died, and plants and some vegetation have off-coloured stalks. The stream running from the mine site has green growth covering it; there is no sign of insects, tadpoles or frogs, and some crystallised plants stick out of the water, as if frozen or covered by salt; no other streams in the area looked like this.

“I was advised not to eat the vegetables I’m growing,” Solomon says,”because you can be affected. I am still cultivating the land because otherwise I will lose it; so I am just here to hold the land.

“I am still waiting for compensation, but they haven’t said anything (about it).”

Following heavy rainfall in May, water from a storage pond at the North Mara mine seeped through the walls of a storage pond. Monitoring by Barrick at the time detected pH levels of 4.8 in the Tigithe River, far too acidic for fish to survive and well short of Tanzanian drinking water standards.

According to the local community the contamination has caused fish, crops and animals in the surrounding area to perish. Villagers allege between 700 and 1000 head of cattle have died since the incident, but provide no evidence for this.

Many locals have also complained of health problems such as skin irritations and stomach pains as a result of drinking and bathing in the water. The results of tests carried out at health centres in the region have yet to materialise.

“Basically what it is, is an impervious layer, right at the bottom, of high density polyethylene plastic. One millimetre thick, dense plastic, which the acid cannot penetrate through. We have a drainage system on top of that, and on top of that a waste dump.”

The dump – rock excavated from the mine – reacts when exposed to rainwater, creating an acidic runoff that must be contained.

“So any water percolating through the waste dump can only report to one place and that’s the pond,” Hermann continues. “When it hits that liner, it can’t go anywhere else. The only place water from there can go from there is into the drainage pipe. And the only place those drainage pipes go to is a lined leach pond… once it reaches the leach-pond it is also completely contained.”

Unless of course something breaches the lining. Barrick claims that the incident in May happened only as a result of villagers stealing the PVC lining from the leach ponds to use as roofing for houses and shops in surrounding villages. In the areas IPS visited, no such misuse of the lining was evident.

Due to manufacturer delays, Barrick was unable to completely replace the lining until August, so for three months, the acid contents may have been seeping through the retaining wall into the river. Currently, the water flowing from directly below the containment pond is at a pH level of about 4.5.

Tanzanian drinking water standards are between 6.5 and 7.5, but the company says that even ten metres downstream from where polluted water enters the river, the pH is back within normal ranges because of dilution.

“This is where we want to dig a trench, so if we ever have breach of the liners again we can pick up the seepage in a nice deep liner here and then pump it back into the ponds,” says Hermann.

The production manager believes that villagers are attracted to the area because the rewards of selling gold outweigh the risks of being caught and charged. “So they were here before us, we stole the land from them, and they’re just returning the favour…” he said, sarcastically.

The community says that Barrick has not compensated people fairly, if at all – and Barrick states that the company is compensating people “handsomely” for any damage caused by the mine.

Hermann explains, “We compensate them for their land, for crops on their land and also for any structures. We pay as if their entire property was planted with bananas (even if it’s not), we call that the ‘full banana concept’.”

Hermann points out that no sick or displaced person appears to be taking direct action against Barrick.

“No one has laid any charges against us as far as I’m aware, (because) they have to have a case. And the fact that they’re not doing anything, makes you question if they really have a case or not,” he says.

“They are trying to put the blame on the community,” says Chacha Wambura, executive director of Foundation HELP, an NGO based in the town of Musoma, 100 km away . Wambura has been working to expose environmental issues around the mine and running awareness-raising and capacity building campaigns for the national community.

“People are not cooperating because they want justice to be done. The community can be aggressive, but the company (and the government) are not trying to alleviate problems. The government is backing Barrick 100 percent, without knowing they are fuelling their own graves: because this water flows into the Mara River, and discharges into Lake Victoria, and so many animals and humans will be affected by that.”

The Mara mine is subject to a set of environmental standards, monitoring bodies and guidelines which regulate environmentally sound practices for mining operations. Barrick says it adheres to these regulations.

However, according to Evans Rubara, a policy and advocacy advisor working on natural resource management in Tanzania and Zambia, there are no transparent measures which have been put in place.

“There is a rising concern over why the Mineral/Mining Policy discussions have stalled,” said Rubara. “Our government has been used for a long time and is being an accessory to Barrick Gold Corporation and the Canadian government to suppress the truth.”

Walking past Solomon’s farm along the path to the river many people – mostly women and children – are going to collect water from the Tigithe. They are all careful to fetch water from upstream of the mine.

“We have always collected water from here, we live nearby,” says Esther Dustin, walking with five other women from the area. “Most people depend on the river for everything; for bathing, washing, drinking, and for cattle.

“We have been complaining about the water since 2005, but this year was the worst. We have to use the water, because there is no other source, the Mara River is too far from here.”

In the darkest corner of the room, under the clamour of twelve women’s voices, sits Ghati Chacha*, she can barely be heard. Her newborn suckles as she speaks softly about how she refused female circumcision.

Chacha was forced to marry an 80-year-old man after she refused to be circumcised. Credit: Jessie Boylan/IPS

“I refused because (the previous) President Mkapa had banned circumcision in Tanzania,” she said. After this, however, Chacha was forced to marry an 80-year-old man because, according to the local Kurya custom in the Mara district of northern Tanzania, she was no longer suitable for a man of her own age.

“I was forced marry by my father,” she said. “I tried to refuse, but my father ordered me to leave home. He was paid only 12 cows for my marriage.”

It becomes obvious that Chacha is the only one in the room who is uncircumcised and her story is cut off as the other women in the room shout to be heard.

“The young men laugh at each other if they marry an uncircumcised woman,” said Mondesta Mugaya, a 65-year-old woman, who used to perform circumcision in Kitarmanka Village in the Musoma rural district.

“And the uncircumcised girls are still considered to be children,” she said. “At traditional ceremonies, uncircumcised women aren’t allowed to be there.

“I don’t believe in circumcision for girls anymore, but without it girls sleep around a lot.”

In Mama Regina’s office at the Catholic Diocese of Musoma, Bhoke Mwita* is smiling. She’s sitting on a wooden chair swinging her legs and fiddling with her mobile phone. In 2004 she and her two children found refuge here.

It was Mama Regina Andrew who, not long after she had started an FGM campaign with the diocese, found Mwita in her village seeking help. As the assistant for the Women in Development (WID) programme, Mama Regina has helped 36 girls escape FGM, and another 90 women from problems like domestic abuse and forced marriage.

“It is one of the biggest ceremonies in Kurya tradition,” said Mama Regina. “Some 95 percent of girls are still being circumcised in the Tarime District.

“The law is against FGM, but we don’t know how the government is dealing with these issues,” she said.

The tradition was banned in 1998, but it is deeply embedded, and according to the Diocese it is only in the past 10 years perceptions have started to change.

Mama Regina and some Sisters regularly visit villages to hold public meetings and events, they also initiate working groups to provide information about women and children’s rights, particularly the effects of FGM.

“It wasn’t an easy task, because women are seen as not the same as men, not as important. The women do a lot of work, at home, in the farm, with the children, but it is the men who are the beneficiaries,” she said.

“You see, girls are seen as generating income for the family,” said Mama Regina. “Parents don’t see the reason to send girls to school because they won’t receive the dowry when the girl is married. They think it will make the family poor.”

Mama Regina believes that FGM will take many years to die out among the Kurya. “It’s a kind of religion,” she said.

“We started the big FGM refugee camp just outside of town here as a place for the girls to get counselled, as well as somewhere for them to run to when they escape from their communities,” she said.

“When the girls go back to their communities they say ‘Thank you for this tradition, because I fled, and now I’m educated’. The families see them speaking with confidence, without fear and this helps them realise the importance of stopping FGM.

“I believe that it will take time to change, but one day soon it will be a shame to be circumcised.”

According to Mama Regina, when Mwita arrived at the diocese she was very thin, nervous and softly spoken. Now, said Mama Regina, she has gained a lot of confidence, strength, and weight, and is completing secondary school.

Through the WID program, Mwita herself now runs micro-finance programs for women in villages to start businesses such as farming, bakeries and clothing shops. She also speaks at public forums and educates about the effects of FGM.

“When I go back to my village,” said Mwita, “people respect me and they are cautious about what they say to me. But it is like bringing Western values in, and I am aware of the difference.

“Life is different for me now, it’s better to be here (in town) than in the village. Now I am strong, unafraid, and can fight for my rights.”

*Not her real name

The sun is setting slowly over Dar es Salaam’s Tabata Changombe neighbourhood. Ameenah and Skukulu Juma lean against the corrugated iron walls of their makeshift charcoal shop.

Charcoal provides cheap fuel and hundreds of thousands of jobs, but at a high environmental cost. Credit: Jessie Boylan/IPS

The earth is black. Charcoal layers every surface and crevice. Shawls over their heads, tired looks dampening their eyes, they’re waiting for customers.

“This is my only business,” says Ameenah Juma, looking sideways nervously. “My husband passed away, I have two children and I also look after my parents. It is very hard, because they all depend on my income.”

A woman comes by and fills a small sack, hands over 1,500 Tanzanian shillings (equivalent to about $1.20 dollars) and continues down the street, dodging goats and avoiding swerving mini-buses.

The World Bank estimates that one million tonnes of charcoal are consumed in Tanzania each year, roughly half of this in the capital, Dar es Salaam. Juma is part of a small business collective whose members put their money together to purchase charcoal – often illegally produced – by suppliers far outside Dar es Salaam.

“During the time when the business was good, I used to go and collect the charcoal myself, but now because the business is difficult I stay here and buy from people who transport it here,” she said.

“We organise a truck that can carry about 80 sacks,” says Juma, “some of which we sell here, the rest we sell to other people for their businesses. After the costs of purchasing and transport, we end up with about 4,000 shillings ($3 profit) per large sack of charcoal, which is shared between the workers and their dependents.

Juma is vague about how much she earns each month. “Very little,” she says.

“It used to be a very good business, because very few people were doing it. Now the market is very competitive and many people are selling charcoal. We don’t earn much money, sometimes it’s not even enough to buy food for my family,” she said.

Demand for charcoal across sub-Saharan Africa is extremely high. Compared to wood, it burns with less smoke and is also more readily available to urban consumers.

According to the Household Energy Network (HEDON) charcoal is high-value and easy to transport and store. The fuel has twice the calorific value of wood, but it is burnt in highly wasteful stoves, which are much less efficient than gas or electric stoves.

Charcoal has long been the main fuel for cooking in households and restaurants throughout Tanzania. It is the only real option for the urban poor in Dar es Salaam. Gas is reserved for the well-off, electric stoves are few and far between, and firewood is not easily found within the city limits.

Environmentally, charcoal use has a severe impact, accounting for a large part of deforestation in developing countries. According to the Tanzanian Traditional Energy and Development Organisation, TaTEDO, some 300 hectares of forest are cleared each day in Tanzania, for timber, to clear space for agriculture or grazing livestock and for the production of charcoal.

One hundred million tonnes of charcoal are produced annually in Tanzania, resulting in nine million tonnes of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere.

There are other reasons for Tanzanians’ dependency on charcoal, according to Moses Mallanda, also a resident of the Tabata Changombe neighbourhood: people are fearful of electricity and gas.

“The Chinese people are importing wires for wiring the houses, which is of very poor quality,” Mallanda says, “and sometimes houses burn, so people think that gas is even more dangerous. People need to be educated first about gas and electricity then they can use it. Even myself, I can afford to use gas but I am scared of it, I don’t trust myself or my wife to use it.”

Mallanda’s wife Lucy disagrees. She says she would much prefer to use gas than charcoal, because it is much cleaner and user-friendly; it doesn’t smoke the house out or make the floors dirty.

Mallanda’s neighbour, Miriam Kipiki, also challenges the idea that people fear gas. “I’ve been using gas for two years now. I was using charcoal before,” she said. “It’s the initial cost of the stoves that is expensive, but they last for a very long time, whereas the stoves for charcoal break down every three months or so.”

Kipiki comes from a well-off family and is familiar with gas stoves, protests Mallanda. This makes it easier for her to afford a gas stove, and to use one.

Earlier Mallanda had mentioned that in Tanzania, domestic work is usually considered women’s work. But, he said, women are becoming much stronger these days: “they do what they want.”

“Perhaps you’ll have to buy a gas stove now that you know your wife wants it?” I say.

He laughs, “maybe,” then sits down on the large couch to watch the television.

“The choice of what to cook with is yours,” says Lucy Mallanda, “the government doesn’t offer any ideas or solutions, they just create ads on how bad charcoal is.”

Press reports on illegal timber exports and growing awareness of deforestation led government to impose a total ban on charcoal in 2006. A March 2009 study of charcoal use in Tanzania by the World Bank says the ban’s only impact was to deprive the government of revenue from licensing production while brisk trade carried on illegally. Prices for charcoal went up – and stayed up – as did corruption of officials.

The ban lasted only two weeks.

The goverment’s search for more effective action is complicated because responsibility falls between various ministries. Policies on better management of forests have been put in place; taxes on gas and the cylinders it’s sold in have been lifted, with limited effect.

The World Bank study’s recommendations begin with improving how government taxes on charcoal are collected. The authors call for fees to be collected as the fuel is transported, instead of attempting to license tens of thousands of small producers on-site; more of this revenue should be left at the district level, where it should be spent on reducing forest degradation through community-based management and training charcoal producers on more efficient techniques.

At the other end of the chain, more efficient stoves would reduce demand while saving poor households money; and affordable alternatives to charcoal, such as ethanol gels or briquettes pressed out waste materials like sawdust should be supported.

The failure of the ban illustrates how any policy combination will have to be thought through with care. The charcoal industry generates an estimated 650 million dollars a year, employing hundreds of thousands of people, as producers, transporters, artisans who manufacture charcoal stoves, and retailers like the Jumas.

The challenge is to find ways to preserve their livelihoods, use forest resources sustainably, and maintain supplies of affordable fuel for the poor.

*Terna Gyuse in Cape Town contributed to this story.

A visit from Dutch contractors to Niassa Province, in northwestern Mozambique has got communities excited about the prospect of a carbon credit scheme in the area.

Gathered under a large mango tree in a lakeside village, a community is deep in discussion. We have many problems here, says an elder. We have no health centre, says another. There is a lack of employment.

Everyone has their say: Water is a problem. The wood and fish supplies are shrinking. Transport is very difficult. Animals, insects and disease destroying our crops… the list goes on.

The village is one of many spread across the undeveloped shoreline of Lake Niassa. Each community speaks of the same problems; some more, some less, each wanting development, each wanting change.

So when representatives of Silvestrum, a Dutch company working on sustainable management and carbon assets in the agriculture, forestry and land-use sector (AFOLU), came to Niassa Province in September to study the viability of a carbon credit scheme in the area, villagers’ ears pricked up.

Details of the project proposed for Niassa are not yet defined, but Silvestrum director Eveline Trines told IPS it would likely include a combination of improved agriculture, forest management and firewood plantations.

A successful scheme could bring additional income into one of the poorest areas of Mozambique, prompt development, and help protect the local environment from current deforestation and burning, and future mining developments planned in the area.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regulates and supports the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows polluters in developed countries to invest in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries rather than reducing emissions in their own countries.

The UNFCCC claims that 4,200 CDM projects have been approved to date; over 300 million carbon credits – each equivalent to a tonne of CO2 – are issued annually. The UNFCCC expects that by 2012, 8,000 CDM projects could be running, generating more than $30 billion for developing countries.

There is a separate voluntary market for carbon offsetting, in which individuals and companies invest in projects to offset their emissions.

According to the environmental group Friends of the Earth UK (FoE UK), by 2007 the voluntary offsetting market accounted for 65 million tonnes of CO2 and CDM accounted for 791 million tonnes.

But offset schemes have been criticised by NGOs, environmentalists and individuals, who see it as distracting from a larger picture of over-consumption, pollution and climate change. FoE UK published a sharply critical report on carbon offsetting in June, titled “A Dangerous Distraction; Why Offsetting is Failing the Climate and People: The Evidence” arguing that offsetting does not guarantee emission reductions and may do more harm than good.

However, the Umoji Association, a representative voice for conservation, resources and development issues for 300,000 hectares of the northwest Niassa Province, is enthusiastic about the benefits an offsetting scheme could bring, and are waiting willingly for the next step.

“We are very poor in these communities,” said Dinis Joal Manda, a member of the Umoji Association in Cobue. “We have nothing. The community want (development), they want hospitals, clinics, schools, roads and these things…”

With burning and deforestation taking place at an alarming rate in the area, Manda recognised the need for conservation. “There is also no guard in the area, so everyone is burning and chopping down trees, we want to stop that,” he said.

Although he wasn’t sure as to how carbon offsetting works or exactly how much money the scheme could bring, Manda was eager to start.

“Umoji has nothing now, we need someone to help us, so we think the money we will receive for the carbon project will help us in making these (conservation) projects,” he said.

From the perspective of reducing carbon emissions overall, Friends of the Earth is sceptical, believing carbon trading does not actually encourage polluters to switch to cleaner technologies, thus delaying the overall reductions in emissions needed to avert catastrophic climate change. In the worst cases, offsetting projects may even do considerable harm to local economies.

The report gives the example of a CDM project in India where a hydro plant on the Bhilangana river is threatening to destroy a low-carbon system of agriculture when it displaces local farmers run a successful terraced irrigation system to produce rise, wheat, mustard, fruit and vegetables.

“We don’t agree with offsetting outside Northern nations at this point because there are many well-documented instances of offset programs negatively impacting on people and communities in the South,” said Cam Walker, the campaigns coordinator for FoE Australia.

“We believe emissions reductions should be made at domestic level only,” said Walker. “However, we do trust community organisations, and if they believe they can work a good deal for themselves and their community on a specific carbon credit programme, then we would support their choice in getting involved in that.”

The FoE UK report says that developing nations will need at least $200 billion a year for mitigation, and $67 billion a year for adaptation by 2020. Developing countries simply do not have the capacity to address poverty and human development while simultaneously adapting to and mitigating climate change, it said.

Silvestrum director Trines says that carbon trading allows polluters in developed countries to adopt cleaner technologies at their own pace while contributing to sustainable development in developing countries.

Is carbon trading the appropriate mechanism to fund all or part of this need? The answers to that question are part of what is at stake both at the level of global climate change negotiations to be held in Copenhagen in December, and in working out the fine details of thousands of projects in places like Niassa.

“We are serious about the integrity of the environment,” says Neville Huxham, the country director for Paladin Energy Africa. “We’re taking the uranium out of the ground, we’re exporting it to be used for productive purposes, so we should be getting a medal for cleaning up the environment.”

Campaigners say there is insufficient protection for the environment at Kayelekera. Credit: Jessie Boylan/IPS

In the rolling hills 575 kilometres north of Malawi’s capital city Lilongwe, lies Paladin’s Kayelekera uranium mine, the first major mining development in Malawi, and the standard on which future mines will be based.

The narrow, winding road to Kayelekera is mostly unsealed, crossing the North Rukuru and Sere Rivers as it makes its narrow, winding way past numerous scattered villages hugging its edges.

“The road is much better now,” Reinford Mwagonde, director of Citizens For Justice (CFJ), tells us on the way out to the village. “At least four trucks carrying sulphuric acid drive this road every day – what would happen if one of them had an accident?”

Mwagonde has been campaigning against Paladin’s activities since 2005, when he became aware of the company’s plans to develop the mine. CFJ and four other civil society organisations (CSOs) took Paladin to court in 2006, challenging the company’s mining licence on a number of grounds including inadequacies in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process.

“The EIA didn’t address serious environmental concerns around the issue of water contamination of the rivers that flow into Lake Malawi,” says Mwagonde. The lake is a major source of potable water and fish for millions of people in Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique.

“They say that we’re anti-development,” says Mwagonde, “because we’re against the mine. But we’re against the mine because of the long-term health and environmental implications that are unique to uranium mining that the community has not been properly informed about.”

Creative legislation

CFJ has also raised concerns that the mine would not be operating in Australia under its current configuration, and that it is taking advantage of Malawi’s minimal understanding or regulation of uranium mining.

John Borshoff, Paladin’s director, was quoted in the Apr. 3, 2006 edition of Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper saying “Australia and Canada have become overly sophisticated… There has been an over compensation in terms of thinking about environmental and social issues in regard to uranium operations in Australia, forcing companies like Paladin into Africa.”

The Malawian government has drafted legislation dealing with radioactive materials but it is yet to be passed. Concerns have been raised by CSOs that Paladin’s input into the draft legislation has been too great, and that the company should not have been granted a license to mine before legislation was in place.

“Paladin,” according to Undule Mwakasungula, director of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, “cannot be held accountable if something happens.”

For example, the closure plan outlined by Paladin in the EIA lacks an appropriate strategic, long-term tailings management plan. Rather than moving the tailings back into the mine-pit at closure, as would be required in Australia, Paladin plans to leave them in the tailings dam exposed to erosion and extreme weather conditions.

On the ground

Paladin Energy Ltd. is a junior Australian mining company with only one other operating mine – the Langer Heinrich uranium mine in Namibia. Although Paladin started mining and stockpiling ore at Kayelekera in June 2008, the mine wasn’t officially opened until April of this year by Malawian president Bingu wa Mutharika… and won’t be in full production until the end of 2009.

With a long list of shareholders anxious to being exporting 3.3 million pounds of uranium-oxide per annum from Kayelekera, it isn’t surprising that Paladin was in a hurry to start digging.

Paladin have committed to, and started, various social development projects in the Kayelekera and Karonga region, which have been generally welcomed by the community. Malawi’s minister of mines, Grain Malunga, noted that Paladin has been “training the villagers to undertake agricultural activities to empower the people there, like to produce vegetables to sell to the mine.”

The company has also renovated the existing primary school and are paying locals to make the bricks for a new classroom; a secondary school will be built in five years, once they start receiving revenue from exports.

Once a week doctors from Chitipa visit the Kayelekera clinic to provide health services including HIV/Aids tests and counselling. Paladin also capped a bore in Kayelekera, and a water project for Karonga is under construction to augment the existing inconsistent water supply.

The population in the area around the mine is growing rapidly, placing a greater demand on minimal government services. One community member in Kayelekera expressed the view that had the government provided the village with the basic services that Paladin are offering, he would never have supported the mine.

However, Minister Malunga argues that as many people have migrated to the area since the mine began construction, the company has a responsibility to augment the basic services the government could provide.

Workers’ rights

The opening of the mine has seen a huge expansion in the local population as people move to the area looking for work. This has put pressure on housing supply in both Kayelekera and Karonga with rents increasing significantly. Prices for food and other essential items have also shot up.

Gertrude Mwalwenje’s family is one of the many who came to the village after hearing about potential work. She came with her husband and two year old daughter before they knew if he would even get a job at the mine. Their home is small and basic, one among the other recently constructed mud houses, a “slum village” for contract workers and their families.

Gertrude’s husband now works as a pipe fitter in the processing plant. “He doesn’t get paid well,” she tells me on the path leading to the clinic, “just 6000 kwacha (roughly 43 U.S. dollars) a month, and he works seven days a week, from 6 am to 6 pm.”

This was a common story given by several MotaEngil workers, a company contracted by Paladin. During the construction phase employment peaked at 2000 workers, over 80 percent Malawi nationals. Approximately 300 Malawians and 50 workers from overseas are expected to be employed once the mine is in full production.

“People coming from outside (from the Philippines or South Africa) who are working the same positions (as Malawians) get paid more.” Mwalenje continues shyly. With an extremely high unemployment rate, poverty is the driving factor for Malawians’ willingness to work long hours for little pay.

Poverty may also explain workers’ reluctance to ask questions despite concerns over occupational health and safety.

“Paladin told us that radiation is bad for us, but they didn’t tell us much,” says James Kantukule standing in front of the MotoEngil village on the main road in Kayelekera.

“They put protective gear on us only when visitors come and when they leave they take it off again,” he claims.

Kantakule has been demobilised since major construction ended and mining began and, like many others in his position, is waiting in Kayelekera hoping to be employed again.

Early this year, a welding spark ignited fumes in an enclosed area killing two workers and seriously injured a third. Workers say there have been three other unexplained deaths at the mine site, for whish the families of those who died have not been informed of the cause.

Paladin’s operations and conduct, along with the legislation the company has been closely involved in drafting are likely to set the benchmark for future mining developments of this kind in Malawi.

Paladin have expressed willingness to be fully open and transparent but have yet to provide access to monitoring data to enable independent analysis. “[Paladin] really needs to be held accountable and monitored,” Mwakasungula said.

There is hope that moves to develop a mining workers union in Malawi will help to improve workers occupational health and safety. However, while Paladin claims they are operating in line with international best practice, the questions and concerns raised by local NGOs and community members are still unaddressed.

(*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS – Inter Press Service, and IFEJ – the International Federation of Environmental Journalists.)