Illegal mining is reportedly on the rise in the country’s national parks ZBC News reports. This was revealed by Zimparks Director-General, Fulton Mangwanya who was speaking on the sidelines of a Zimparks officials graduation ceremony at Mushandike college of wildlife conservancy in Masvingo when he said:
When we regularised we made sure they pay conservation fee, at the same time we came up with conditions for miners to rehabilitate the land.
But this is not working out well because these are small scale. We have miners who do not have the capacity to reclaim the land they will have ravaged. This is quite a challenge because our mandate is wildlife conservancy, not mining.
In Chewore and Mkanga we have arrested more than 250 Illegal miners but they keep coming to pick gold nuggets,
Illegal miners have been a menace in most parts of the country, some of them terrorising residents with machetes.
More: ZBC News