Mine Waste Disasters on the Zambian Copperbelt: Regulatory and Community Concerns

The accumulated waste produced by a mine can pose risks to communities in the vicinity. Three disasters occurring within 15 months on the Zambian Copperbelt have refocused attention on mine waste management and disasters in Africa. The paper investigates these three disasters in the light of the changing regulatory environment and liberalisation of the mining sector in Zambia. Although the country has been slow to adapt, some regulatory progress has been made in the past ten years. However, our interviews with two focus groups and twelve key informants and our assessment of media and government reports found little recognition of the need for co-development of disaster responses and risk reduction. Some progress has been made regarding transparency in the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM) and in Zambia's regulations. But the enforcement of the regulations remains weak in Zambia. Old waste legacies and new value chains linked to liberalisation hold disaster risk. The result is livelihood disruption, environmental degradation, damage to health, and sometimes fatalities. We call for Zambia to be proactive and forge a closer link between the existing ecological regulations and disaster risk reduction, rather than relying on dealing with the consequences when a disaster happens.