Lithium mining in Zimbabwe: a story of loss for one community

Lithium is an essential component of electric vehicle batteries, which are becoming more important as the world moves to a low-carbon energy future. Large deposits of lithium exist in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, the US, Australia, Portugal, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Ghana. Zimbabwe is the largest producer of lithium in Africa, and the ninth largest in the world.

The Zimbabwean government promotes mining to stimulate socio-economic development. But new lithium mining has had devastating environmental and social effects. One of them is that communities have been displaced from their ancestral land.

I am a social scientist who conducts research on social aspects of the transition to renewable energy and of mining. My latest research traces how 41 families in Buhera were displaced from their homes to make way for Zimbabwe’s third largest lithium mine, owned by China’s Sabi Star mining company.

Buhera is a remote rural area in south-eastern Zimbabwe, one of several places in the country where lithium is currently being mined. A Chinese company (Max Mind Investments) which runs the Sabi Star mine was granted over 55 mining claims in the area in September 2021. This company is expected to extract lithium deposits in the area for over 20 years.

I wanted to assess whether the displaced families had been given the opportunity to exercise free, prior and informed consent about whether to leave their land, how they had agreed to leave, and what happened to them afterwards.

To do this, I reviewed all articles on lithium mining in Buhera, Zimbabwe. I also reviewed all publicly available documents, including film documentaries and media reports about the Buhera displacements. I interviewed civil society organisations who had investigated the social and environmental impacts of lithium extraction.

My interviews with these civil society organisations and my review of publicly available documents and media reports show that this community said that the mining company, allied with government technocrats, manipulated and coerced them into accepting forced resettlements by promising new houses and jobs on the mine. Villagers were also told they stood to lose their land if they stayed.

The reports I collected showed that the relocated families accepted a promise of new houses of a certain size but received smaller homes that developed cracks four months after they moved in. Villagers also said that the Mukwasi dam which they had depended on for irrigation and livestock drinking water was taken over by the mining company.

There has been little research in Zimbabwe before this on the transition to renewable energy and forced displacement and resettlement of communities. The Zimbabwean government urgently needs to set up responsible resettlement policies and safeguards for communities whose land is rich in minerals and who will be asked to relocate. This research provides essential data for that to happen.

Broken promises

In all development projects that encroach on people’s land, the affected people have the right to refuse to leave their land. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (to which Zimbabwe is a signatory) contains this right of free, prior and informed consent. This right allows people to participate in decision making and helps ensure that they get the outcome they want.

In Buhera in Zimbabwe, smallholder farmers and artisanal miner families working on their own ancestral land were moved off their land and out of their homes, a group of displaced people told the media:

The chief was threatening us that if we did not comply, we were going to lose everything

Apart from being moved to smaller homes than promised, and of poorer quality, community members lost access to natural resources such as water, grazing land and fruit trees. They also said they were given less compensation than they’d asked for:

We had said we wanted (an initial payment of) US$3,000 (and not US$1,000 that we were given) … We did not know where to go or to turn to.

The families said they were unaware that the Mines and Minerals Act allowed them to take the matter to the administrative court, so they accepted what the company paid. Graves were also exhumed to make way for the mine, causing emotional distress, particularly for parents who had buried children:

Burying a child once is a burden no parent should bear, but to bury them again - to unearth the memories and relive the pain - is a heartache beyond measure.

Houses were allocated per family, regardless of the size. One family with 22 members was moved to a five-bedroomed house.

The Mines and Minerals Act of Zimbabwe says mining corporates must compensate communities. But because of factors like weak governance and corruption, this law is not properly followed.

Forms of displacement

My research found several types of displacement in Buhera: physical, economic and cultural.

Physical displacement: this is the permanent relocation of communities. In Buhera, families were displaced from Mukwasi village, some to areas near to the mine and others to Murambinda Growth Point (an area designated by the government for development as an urban centre). The area has no communal farming land – the families who were accustomed to farming lost their land and had no choice but to become job seekers.

Economic displacement: this is when communities are not physically displaced but are restricted from using farming land and water for fishing and livestock grazing. This occurred at several other lithium mines in Buhera, Bikita and Mberengwa.

Cultural displacement: this refers to the impact of land grabbing and restricted natural resource access on culture. Communities are removed from their ancestral lands; graves are exhumed; cultural trees and land are degraded by mining activities and water resources are contaminated.

Planning for impacts

Where resettlement is unavoidable, communities must be able to say that they’ve been left better off than they were before. My research recommends these steps:

1. There must be a baseline study of the community that focuses on understanding and minimising potential impacts of displacement.

2. The right to free, prior and informed consent means that project planners must accept that the community might refuse to move.

3. Affected communities must be involved in decision making about the mining project and resettlement planning so that their needs and priorities are recognised.

4. Compensation must make up for the losses people suffer.

5. Each resettlement scheme must be evaluated to ensure that communities were left better off and empowered. Grievance mechanisms must be established for people to raise problems about the project and resettlement outcomes.