Zambezi River Basin

The mining industry has been Zambia’s economic and social backbone since the 1930s. The industry is dominated by copper mining, which started large-scale production in Luanshya in 1931 followed by Nkana in 1932, Mufulira in 1933 and then Nchange in 1939. Copper production surpassed 400 000 tonnes per year in the 1950s, before reaching a peak of 700 000 tonnes per year in the period between 1969 and 1976.

Mining

Mining and mineral extraction are some of the key activities in the basin’s urban areas. Areas around the towns of Chegutu, Kadoma and Kwekwe in Zimbabwe are heavily involved in mining gold and platinum, while all the urban areas in Zambia’s Copperbelt are involved in copper mining. Large-scale mining in Zambia’s Copperbelt province began in the 1930s, attracting workers and turning the savannah woodland into a heavily populated area. Until the 1960s, the mining industry used wood from

surrounding lands to produce energy for the copper mines. This resulted in the clearing of much of the surrounding woodland. There is also significant small-scale mining in rural areas. This includes panning for gold, a poverty-driven activity that is estimated to support the livelihoods of about 2 million people in the riparian states of the Zambezi basin (Drescler 2001). Panning operations tend to cause massive damage to river systems. The

40