By Burnett Munthali
The main focus of this article is on sand mining taking place along some rivers in Malawi, causes, the dangers lying ahead of us and possible solutions.
Our environment is at great risk and this article is a wake up call for all stakeholders to take action now than wait for the future damages that will put the population of Malawi at greater risks than ever before.
Control measures, will be very difficult to be put in place in future Malawi normally doesn’t have sufficient resources to solve many challenges already. We are a struggling begging nation for 58 years since independence now.
It is sad when you travel around different places within the country and see how sand mining business is taking place.
All you see is some citizens seem to have a source of income, no matter how much they damage they are causing to the environment, it’s just fine for them.
It doesn’t matter and they don’t see any danger they are causing to everyone and the future generation to come.
The environment where we live is slowly getting damaged through sand mining everyday. This challenge will be hard to reverse in the future years to come. There are two possible reasons for all this.
First, ignorance is the root cause of most of the damage. I don’t think the people involved in this sand business have any idea of what they are doing.
Secondly, careless decision making is another problem we have in our society. Some people went to school but still do things without being very thoughtful.
Education doesn’t seem to have helped some people for sure. Many people went to school just to pass examinations any get jobs and it ends there.
We are failing to make Malawi a better place to live and the damage is just so huge in this nation.
Thirdly, our poverty levels are causing many people to stop thinking and reasoning. All some people do keep doing what they do. Besides, poverty is connected
Sand mining from rivers and marine ecosystems, leads to significant environmental impacts, including coastal and river erosion, shrinking deltas, land-use changes, air pollution, salinization of coastal aquifers and groundwater reserves, threats to freshwater and marine fisheries and biodiversity.
It is the world’s most consumed raw material after water and an essential ingredient to our everyday lives. Sand is the primary substance used in the construction of roads, bridges, high-speed trains and even land regeneration projects..
Excessive instream sand-and-gravel mining causes the degradation of rivers. Instream mining lowers the stream bottom, which may lead to bank erosion.
Depletion of sand in the streambed and along coastal areas causes the deepening of rivers and estuaries, and the enlargement of river mouths and coastal inlets.
Depletion of sand in the streambed and along river beds, for example, Mchesi River is causing the deepening of the river and the enlargement of river mouths every year. If you look at this river today, it looks much bigger than what it was some years back.
In fact, Mchesi River was just a small stream which young boys could cross by jumping over it when playing as they went to pluck guavas that grew along the dambo area.
Today, it has become a river that down and sweep away adults when it is flooded. Even cars can’t cross as the water overflow goes above the bridge.
Way forward
Breaking the reliance on concrete as the go-to material for building houses, by increasing the tax on aggregate extraction, training architects and engineers, and looking to alternative materials including as wood and straw, would also reduce our demand for sand mining.
