Between copper dreams and coal dust – Zambia's struggle for justice in the raw materials boom

By Bettina Meier

Zambia, Southern Province near Lake Kariba. At the roadside, shrouded in brown hot dust, the silhouette of a woman breaking stones with a hammer, a child on her back, another beside her in the sand. Less than ten metres away, heavy trucks rumble along the sandy track, leaving clouds of dust in their wake. They are carrying coal to fuel the copper mines in the north of the country. A sunless, dystopian landscape symbolising the harsh effects of the energy transition, which is causing environmental destruction and social conflict in the Global South.

 A woman digging for tin in an open pit. Photo: Bettina Meier

Located in southern Africa and rich in natural resources, Zambia is one of the countries hoping to benefit from the energy transition. Copper mining, which is essential for energy and transport infrastructure as well as electronics, accounts for 15 per cent of Zambia’s gross domestic product and over 70 per cent of its exports. Cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese are abundant, and these minerals are needed for battery production. China and, increasingly, the Gulf States are investing heavily in Zambia's mining sector, while the USA is promoting the construction of a railway line from Zambia's Copperbelt mining province to the Angolan port city of Lobito, and the European Union already concluded a strategic raw materials partnership with Zambia in 2023. President Hakainde Hichilema wants to triple copper production to three million tonnes a year by 2031, and the mining of cobalt, nickel, manganese and precious stones is also being promoted. 

Mining is intended to increase government revenue and create jobs, as the population is young and poverty is widespread. The average age of Zambia's 21 million inhabitants is 17.7 years. According to the World Bank, 64.2 per cent of the population lived on less than 2.15 US dollars a day in 2022, with a Gini index of 51.8. This makes Zambia one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the world.

Coal for the energy transition

We are in the Southern Province of Zambia, a region that is primarily agricultural but where coal and precious stones have been mined since colonial times. However, since the boom in critical raw materials, people's lives have been changing rapidly. In the village of Sinazese, I speak with Jeff Kayamba, a social worker at the NGO Centre for Environment Justice (CEJ), which advises local communities on exercising their rights. He knows the area well, having grown up here. “Three years ago, we had two coal companies here,” Kayamba says. “Now there are fifteen. People are losing their land. Many have been displaced several times and have to start over again and again, which is hard.” Although the law provides for compensation and the allocation of replacement land and housing, most companies do not comply with this. “In most cases, those displaced receive only two kwacha, or about 50 euro cents, in compensation per square metre,” explains Kayamba.

CEJ has documented many such cases. The investigative platform Makanday Weekly also recently reported on 50 families who were resettled in half-finished, substandard houses on infertile land.

The village headman of Siamajele. The houses were demolished as part of the resettlement programme.
Photo: Bettina Meier

But, I ask Kayamba, doesn't mining also have positive aspects, such as creating jobs? Yes, he says, many young men are employed in the underground coal mines. “But their jobs are precarious. They work mostly as day labourers,” Kayamba explains. “ Very few of them have permanent contracts with social security and health insurance.” The hourly wage is 50 kwacha, about 1.70 euros, and the monthly wage is between 3,000 and 5,000 kwacha, or 120 to 200 euros. That's a good salary by Zambian standards, but most of the companies, which are Chinese, don't stick to the legal minimum wage. And the work is dangerous, whereas the safety standards are poor.

There is a certain irony in the fact that coal mining is booming right now. Coal provides the energy for the mines in the Copper Belt. Due to climate-related drought, the state-owned energy supplier, which depends on hydropower, is unable to deliver – so the mines operate their own coal-fired power stations. In order to produce the copper for the energy transition in the global North, massive investments are currently being made in fossil fuels in Zambia – an absurd state of affairs!

On the road from Maamba to Batoka, where the woman and her children are breaking stones, hundreds of heavy goods vehicles carrying 35 tonnes of coal each pass by every day. Now, at the end of the dry season, the dust pollution is enormous; it is difficult to breathe, and it is hard to imagine having to live near this road. 

Land loss and precarious compensation

Kayamba takes me to a meeting in the village of Siamajele, whose land belongs to the Chinese mining company Collum Coal, which has been mining coal here since 2000. Long cracks have appeared in the villagers' fields and between their houses because Collum is continuing to drive its shafts underground. As many as 167 families have had to leave their homes, and Collum Coal has to compensate them. Because this was not being done adequately, the state environmental protection agency ZEMA (Zambia Environmental Management Agency) ordered the mine to be closed in May 2025. This is a rare measure for the chronically underfunded and often inactive authority.

Cracks in farmers' fields in Siamajele. Photo: Bettina Meier

At the meeting, it turns out that many have already agreed to the compensation offered. Kayamba is angry because if they had acted together, they could have achieved more. The houses they are supposed to move into are not good, I am told. Most of the villagers remain on their land, even though it is dangerous. And they want the mine to reopen soon, because it is the only source of income in the area. When I speak to Kayamba on the phone in January, he tells me that almost all of the families have moved and are now living in tents. However, with the help of CEJ, nine families had hired a solicitor who had their property valued and arrived at a much higher compensation amount. "Collum offered between 20,000 and 45,000 kwacha per household. That's between 800 and 1,800 euros. For the loss of their homes, cattle sheds, fruit trees, granaries, maize fields – that's not enough!" says Kayamba.

Mining obviously causes enormous environmental and social damage. The water table is falling, drinking water wells are drying up and people are forced to obtain water from rivers into which companies discharge their waste water. Dust and toxins from the spoil heaps are damaging the health of humans and animals, and farming and livestock breeding are no longer possible. And the destruction of the landscape is accompanied by cultural alienation. “It's so sad to see the graves and shrines of our ancestors disappearing because of all the digging going on,” Kayamba laments. The connection to the ancestors, central to people's identity and self-esteem, is thus lost.

Critical minerals – licences for small-scale and  artisanal mining

However, it is not only the large mines, mostly operated by Chinese companies, that are destroying people's habitats and livelihoods. Small-scale and  artisanal mining, often illegal, has also led to massive problems.

In the district of Zimba, also in the Southern Province, I meet Namo Chuma, director of the NGO Environment Africa Zambia (EAZ). The discovery of lithium two years ago led to an uncontrolled rush of small-scale miners, causing environmental damage and economic losses, as stones were smuggled.  Finally, in January 2025, the army was called in to bring the situation under control. However, the visitor sees nothing of this. Outwardly, the area appears rural, with harvested cornfields, cattle and dried-up scrubland. Small mining companies, Chinese and Indian, are active here, mining lithium, precious stones, tantalum and tin in open-cast mines.

EAZ trains so-called Mining Action Groups, action committees that are supposed to defend the interests of the local population against the companies. After a detour to the office of the local Member of Parliament, who proudly shows us a list of 16 companies that currently hold mining licences in her constituency, we carry on to the village of Chalimongela. Ten members of the action committee are gathered at the school, including the elected community representatives on the district council and the traditional chiefs who are the custodians of the farmland. However, the mineral resources underground belong to the state, and mining licences are issued in the distant capital Lusaka by the Ministry of Mines and Mineral Development. Local authorities, even district councils, are rarely informed, let alone the farmers on whose land the mineral resources are being extracted. In conversation, I hear: "The investors come with their machines, mark our fields and cattle pastures, and start digging. When we confront them, they say they have permission from the highest office. We can't do anything."

Grazing land in Chalimongela. Photo: Bettina Meier

Similar to resettlement, there are also laws and regulations governing mining permits that are intended to protect citizens and the environment. For example, the granting of a licence is preceded by an environmental and social impact assessment, and a public hearing is also required. Yes, in theory it is possible to submit comments, says Namo Chuma. But the deadlines are short, the studies themselves can only be viewed at the ministry in Lusaka or online, and in reality the decision has often already been made. “The documents usually state that the communities have been consulted. But when we ask the people, they are surprised and know nothing about it,” says Chuma.

At the mercy of traders

The conversation with the committee is sobering. “We used to live off agriculture, we were cattle farmers,” I hear, “but because of climate change, the soil is so dry that cattle farming is hardly possible anymore. In addition, the rivers and streams have been silted up by mining, and our cattle no longer have any water.” In fact, Zambia's Southern Province is one of the country’s regions most affected by climate change. Rising temperatures and fluctuations in rainfall, with more frequent and intense periods of drought, threaten rain-fed agriculture, pastoralism, water availability and food security. Forecasts for the coming decades predict a further worsening of the situation. But how can people make a living if they want to stay in their homeland? For many, artisanal mining, is the only alternative.

A study published in 2024 by Caritas Zambia examined the human rights and environmental consequences of mining critical raw materials in Chalimongela. It found that communities are hugely dependent on small-scale mining for their livelihoods. The greater the environmental destruction caused by mining, the less livestock farming and agriculture are possible, and the more impoverished farmers dig for critical raw materials – a vicious circle.

“Nowadays, we earn our living by selling minerals that we dig up with hoes and pickaxes. Mobile traders, known as briefcase buyers, purchase the stones directly from our homes,” explain the committee members. What did they sell last week? Tin, tantalum, niobium and aquamineral, I am told. The entire community, women, children and young people, are in the bush. Tin mining is women's work, backbreaking labour because the stone is particularly hard. If you are lucky, you can collect a gram of tin in a day and sell it for 20 kwacha, which is less than a euro. 

People accept exploitation by traders even though they know that these resell at much higher prices. “People don't know the market prices, and they don't dare to confront the traders,” says Chuma. Through training, the group will learn how to talk to investors and traders and how to find out about prices, he explains. They will also learn what a mining licence issued by the ministry looks like so that they can check whether the papers they are shown are authentic.

The committee members show me a lithium mine whose Chinese operator had to give up under pressure from the local chief.  Now a cooperative runs the mine, but it looks deserted. Without machines to extract the mineral from the rock, operations are very labour-intensive. The quarry looks like a gaping wound in the hilly bushland.

A few kilometres further on, another Chinese company is digging for tungsten, which is used in mechanical engineering, lighting and the arms industry. An excavator tears two-metre-deep and approximately 20-metre-long trenches into the scrubland; it looks as if a giant animal has dug its claws into the earth. The security guards explain that nothing has been found yet. Whether they will fill in the trenches again if they don't find anything is questionable. In all likelihood, no one will check. The farmers, whose cattle can no longer graze here, are the ones who suffer. Many animals have already died miserably after falling into such pits, and children are also at risk.

Tungsten exploration in Chalimongela. Photo: Bettina Meier

What is the government doing?

So how can we better protect people and nature while at the same time promoting the extraction of critical raw materials? A law for the comprehensive modernisation of mining administration was passed in June 2025. The independent Minerals Regulation Commission is now responsible for issuing permits, and can also suspend them. In addition, supervision of occupational safety and compliance with health and environmental standards will be improved. Furthermore, the Ministry of Mines  and Mineral Development is to open offices in the provinces, a prerequisite for ensuring that supervisory duties are fulfilled. A support fund and a separate department within the Ministry of Mines have been set up for small-scale mining, whose training measures are also supported by Germany’s Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

It remains to be seen whether the reform will bring about any change. “On paper, these are good approaches, but the problem lies in their implementation. Do the authorities have sufficient financial and human resources to carry out their tasks? That is the key question,” says Chuma. And Kayamba adds: "If the new institutions are just as underfunded as ZEMA, they will not work. Our laws and regulations are fine in themselves, but there are far too few resources available to implement them." Civil society pressure on the government is therefore just as necessary as educating the local population about their rights and providing them with legal support. The upcoming presidential, parliamentary and local elections on the 13^th August 2026 will show who is committed to ensuring that the extraction of copper, lithium and other critical raw materials does not take place at the expense of the poor and nature.

Bettina Meier is the  Programme Manager for Zambia and Malawi at Brot für die Welt. She  is based in Berlin, Germany.
Contact: Bettina.Meier(at)brot-fuer-die-welt.de

More information on the Centre for Environment Justice (CEJ) and Environment Africa Zambia (EAZ) can be found here:

• CEJ Website
• EAZ Website 

References:

• CCG Policy Brief 28.05.2025: Does Zambia‘s Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Policy Approach Support Sustainable Development? Insights and Recommendations
• Caritas Zambia 2024: How Clean is Clean Energy? Transitioning to Renewable Energy in Zambia: Balancing Critical Minerals Extraction with Human Rights and Environmental Protection.
• Makanday Weekly, 23-26 January 2026: Coal Mine Displacement Leaves Sinazongwe Families Poorer and Unheard.

Further reading:

Rural 21 issue no 1/2024: Indigenous people - why rights and resources matter

Rural 21 issue no 1/2023: Energy – time for change