HARARE – Zimbabwe’s conservation groups have welcomed a\u202fgovernment ban, announced Tuesday, on all mining in the country’s national parks.\u202fThe government declared the mining halt after weeks of campaigns calling for a stop to Chinese coal-mining grants in Hwange, Zimbabwe’s largest national park.<\/p>\n
The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association on Wednesday welcomed the government\u2019s decision to ban all mining in national parks.<\/p>\n
The group had filed an urgent request Monday at the Harare High Court, arguing that Chinese mining inside Hwange National Park risked permanent damage to the ecology.<\/p>\n
Despite the apparent win, the association\u2019s Richard Ncube said they are going ahead with the court challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason being that we still have a valid argument to make: as long as there are still valid authorizations that allow the mining company to continue mining in the national park we still have a case to make and we have to get an order before the court so as to stop the mining companies from mining,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The ban followed weeks of conservationists\u2019 campaigns using the hashtag \u201cSaveHwangeNationalPark.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conservationists demanded the cancellation of licenses given to Chinese companies to mine coal in Hwange, the country’s biggest national park.<\/p>\n
Minister of Mines Winston Chitando said the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) was given permission before President Emmerson Mnangagwa came to power.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mining concession was granted in 2015 to ZMDC\u202f(Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation)\u202fwho have held that mining concession since then\u2026They haven\u2019t done much work on the concession and they proceeded to get a partner to undertake mining in the particular area.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association cites Chitando and ZMDC as defendants in their High Court petition against mining in Hwange.<\/p>\n
It also names Zimbabwe\u2019s Environmental Management Agency and two Chinese mining companies.<\/p>\n
Conservationists fear that without a court order, Zimbabwe\u2019s government could grant the companies an exemption or easily rescind the blanket ban on mining in national parks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HARARE – Zimbabwe’s conservation groups have welcomed a\u202fgovernment ban, announced Tuesday, on all mining in the country’s national parks.\u202fThe government declared the mining halt after weeks of campaigns calling for a stop to Chinese coal-mining grants in Hwange, Zimbabwe’s largest national park. The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association on Wednesday welcomed the government\u2019s decision to ban […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":27495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[546,196],"class_list":{"0":"post-27494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-files","9":"tag-hwange","10":"tag-mining"},"yoast_head":"\n