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Zambia's Stary Mwaba mines the toxic legacy of the Copperbelt's 'black mountains'
Zambia's Stary Mwaba mines the toxic legacy of the Copperbelt's 'black mountains'

BBC News

time5 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • BBC News

Zambia's Stary Mwaba mines the toxic legacy of the Copperbelt's 'black mountains'

Zambia's notorious "black mountains" - huge heaps of mining waste that scar the Copperbelt skyline - are deeply personal to Stary Mwaba, one of the country's leading visual artists."As kids, we used to call it 'mu danger' - meaning 'in the danger'," Mwaba tells the BBC."The 'black mountain' was this place where you shouldn't go," says the painter, who was born and lived in the Copperbelt until he was 18."But we would sneak in anyway - to pick the wild fruits that somehow managed to grow there," the artist the young men heading to "mu danger" are looking for fragments of copper ore in the stony slag of these towering dumpsites - the toxic legacy of a century of industrial mining production in Zambia, one of the world's biggest copper and cobalt dig deep and meandering tunnels - and hew out rocks to sell to mostly Chinese buyers, who then extract is tough, dangerous, often illegal and sometimes fatal work. But it can also be lucrative - and, in a region where youth unemployment is about 45%, for some young people it is the only way that they can make ends meet. Mwaba's latest work - on show at the Lusaka National Museum this month - tells the story of the young people who mine the black mountain in the town of Kitwe - and captures the rhythms of life among the residents of the Wusakile work for gang masters known as "jerabos", a corruption of "jail boys" - hinting at their perceived artist has painted a series of large portraits, using old newspapers as a canvas. He cuts out articles that grab his attention - what he refers to as "grand narratives" - and sticks them on to a backing uses a soldering gun to burn away some of the words and create a series of perforations in the stories. Then he pours in paint to create the portraits, or what he calls the "little narratives"."I take these grand narratives, and I create holes so that you can't make sense of the stories any more. I then impose images of people I know on to them - to show that little stories, the little narratives of ordinary people also count," Mwaba explains."They have stories that are important and are part of the bigger story." The portraits can be seen from both sides and, in characteristic Mwaba style, are brightly artworks are coated with a transparent acrylic and the borders of newspaper held together with clear tape because they are very fragile - like the existence of the people Mwaba has live in the shadow of the black mountain - the site since the early 1930s of millions of tonnes of waste, full of toxic heavy metals - which wreaks havoc on people's health and the painting from his current work is entitled Jerabo and shows a miner preparing safety ropes that are tied around his waist as he lowers himself down narrow precarious tunnels, dug out by hand and prone to landslides. Earlier this year, the entire water supply to Kitwe, home to about 700,000 people, was shut down after a catastrophic spill of waste from a nearby Chinese-owned copper mine into the streams that flow through neighbourhoods like Wusakile into one of Zambia's most important waterways, the Kafue hears stories of hardship and survival during the drawing, photography and performance workshops that he and other artists have held over several portrays a young man almost hugging his precious "shofolo" - the Zambian English, or Zamglish, word for shovel. Such tools are "a personal lifeline", Mwaba says. Ipenga captures the tuba player of a local church group as he parades through the streets one Sunday social lives in Wusakile revolve around either the church or the bar, Mwaba says. But the two young girls in Chimpelwa make their own fun on home-made swings. Strung up in the sturdy branches of a tree are yellow and blue heavy-duty cables - once high-voltage electrical cables, their copper wire innards have now been stripped out and sold as scrap metal. Mwaba comes from a family of miners - his great-grandfathers and one grandfather worked down the mines and his father above the the 49-year-old's interest in the impact of Zambia's mining as a subject for his paintings began almost accidentally in about 2011 - after he helped his daughter, Zoe, with a science project at the Chinese International School, which she attended in the capital, task was to demonstrate how plants absorb minerals and water. He and Zoe went to the market and bought a Chinese cabbage. It is not indigenous but is now eaten in many Zambian has a white stem so is ideal to absorb the food dyes that Zoe decided to use to show how minerals would be similarly drawn into the remembers that the use of Chinese cabbage made the audience "uneasy and so uncomfortable". At the time, the late Michael Sata was campaigning for the presidency - and tensions were high because of his vitriolic rhetoric against the Chinese, who are accused locally of dominating the Zambian economy and exploiting Mwaba turned the science project into a work of art - in which he explored the Chinese presence in Zambia's mining sector through three Chinese cabbage leaves, one dyed yellow to depict copper, one blue for cobalt and the third red for Chinese Cabbage brought Mwaba much international acclaim, and he returned to Zambia in 2015, glowing with the success of an art residency and exhibition in went to Kitwe, where he had spent some childhood years. But his focus changed from just exploring the Chinese presence in Zambia to trying to tell the story of the black mountain people."I went back to a place where I grew up and things had changed so much," the artist says, adding that he "never, ever imagined that I would see the kind of the situation I see now - the poverty"."It was a very emotional space and I was sad," Mwaba says. Mwaba had moved to Kasama in Northern Province in 1994, after his father suddenly died. Three years later Zambia's mines were privatised - leading to massive job losses and an unprecedented economic crisis in the black mountain - always a source of environmental and health problems - now became somewhere to earn money."The worst thing that happened is when the black mountain was super-profitable, most of these young people quit school."Unable to get a job anywhere else, Mwaba's cousin Ngolofwana joined a crew of jerabos. Every day he wakes up and risks his life just to stay afloat and feed his even when the government has banned mining there, the dumpsite's wealth is tightly controlled by an aggressive hierarchy - with the top, sometimes very wealthy, jerabos often living up to their further down the jerabo chain - of feeling exploited, giving up on education to fund someone else's lavish lifestyle, and having little say in their own futures - are reflected in the painting of one young man in a turquoise T-shirt standing with his hands confidently on his hips. Boss for a Day came out of a workshop in which Mwaba invited people to take their own photographs, striking a pose that reflected their hopes and occasionally Mwaba's art may change the course of someone's recalls a time where an older jerabo came to a workshop and said: "Hey, I really like what you're doing."I think I may not understand it, but it's best for my young brother to be coming here because I don't want him to go through what I went through."Penny Dale is a freelance journalist, podcast and documentary-maker based in London More BBC stories on Zambia: WATCH: Stary Mwaba on the importance of paintingAn ancient writing system confounding myths about AfricaGrandma with chunky sunglasses becomes unlikely fashion iconHow a mega dam has caused a mega power crisisZambia made education free, now classrooms are crammedThe $5m cash and fake gold that no-one is claiming Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

Zambia plans 60,000 barrels per day oil refinery in copperbelt
Zambia plans 60,000 barrels per day oil refinery in copperbelt

Reuters

time21-07-2025

  • Business
  • Reuters

Zambia plans 60,000 barrels per day oil refinery in copperbelt

LUSAKA, July 21 (Reuters) - Zambia's government has signed an agreement that paves the way for the development of a $1.1 billion crude oil refinery and energy complex in Ndola in the country's copperbelt, it said on Monday. The planned facility will process about 60,000 barrels per day of crude oil, providing enough refined products to satisfy the Southern African nation's entire current fuel demand and potentially allowing for future exports to neighbouring countries, a government statement said. It will save the nation millions of dollars annually in fuel imports once complete, the statement added. Officials hope construction will start in the third quarter of 2025, with a first phase of commercial operations planned for 2026. The agreement was between Zambia's Industrial Development Corporation and Fujian Xiang Xin Corporation of China. An IDC spokesperson told Reuters the refinery would source crude from the Middle East and that it would be imported through the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam. As well as fuel production, the planned energy complex will include units for liquefied petroleum gas bottling, bitumen production, lubricants blending and a 130-megawatt power plant, Zambia's government said.

Africa: Sustainable resource extraction is a non-negotiable
Africa: Sustainable resource extraction is a non-negotiable

Zawya

time08-07-2025

  • Business
  • Zawya

Africa: Sustainable resource extraction is a non-negotiable

Insight Terra CEO Alastair Bovim warns that within Africa's 'clean dream' vision lies a difficult truth: the critical metals and minerals powering the clean-energy transition are often extracted under conditions that can potentially devastate communities and ecosystems in resource-rich regions. Sustainable resource extraction is not just an ethical imperative, but a non-negotiable element for the long-term viability and legitimacy of this global shift. Radical reframing of the global clean‑energy The US Embassy health alert in Zambia warned of acute heavy‑metal poisoning following the February tailings dam collapse near Kitwe – a potent reminder that tailings failures have immediate human and environmental consequences. With over five major dam failures already recorded around the world in 2025, these events not only threaten water supplies and soil health but also erode trust in both the mining industry and the energy transition it underpins. Drawing on his recent visits to the Copperbelt Annual Geoenvironmental Symposium 2025 in Kitwe, his participation in the ABB LeaderLeap programme in Stockholm and the AWS Energy and Utilities summit in Houston, Bovim calls for a radical reframing of the global clean‑energy narrative: one that addresses the impact of sourcing copper, cobalt, lithium, and other critical metals and minerals in truly sustainable practices from mine to market. AI and the environment Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to profoundly reshape global energy demand while simultaneously accelerating innovation in decarbonisation technologies - but this transformation is not without cost. 'While the US and Europe reap the greatest benefits from AI and clean energy, it is African communities that bear the brunt of the mining required to power this transition. 'We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the environmental and social sacrifices made in the name of progress. In Kitwe, I saw communities forced to use bottled water,' Bovim recalls. 'Decades of air pollutants from mining operations, smelters and ore transport and tailings dams have also resulted in environmental exposure to people, wildlife and agricultural land, yet these critical metals and minerals remain indispensable to the energy transition.' He believes that technology offers a vital bridge between people and planet, provided it is guided by a people‑first mindset. With the help of satellite connectivity, remote earth-observation sensors, IoT networks and AI analytics, it is now possible to gather continuous data on water quality, dust emissions and dam stability, thereby providing the monitoring, reporting, and verification required for supply chain transparency, environmental accountability, and responsible resource management. True accountability Bovim warns against 'tick‑box' compliance efforts. 'Automated systems are powerful, but they cannot wholly replace local knowledge and human oversight,' he says. 'True accountability demands that technology be deployed in close collaboration with engineers of record, community leaders, and regulators, calibrating alerts and response plans to reflect local realities.' He highlights that a people‑centred ESG lens must move beyond compliance metrics to focus on tangible outcomes: - Fair labour practices: Ensuring safe working conditions and equitable benefit‑sharing for mine‑affected communities. - Environmental remediation: Investing in bioremediation techniques – such as advanced microbial treatments - to neutralise pollutants long after mine closure, and planting crops in rehabilitated land. - Regulatory strengthening: Advocating for robust frameworks that mandate independent monitoring, secure financial provision for closure, and transparent public reporting. 'It was inspiring to learn that some leading European energy companies have set ambitious fossil-free and net-zero goals across their value chains; however, the mining operations that underpin our electric future still have significant progress to make in advancing safety standards and environmental stewardship. 'To truly align with their sustainability commitments, energy companies must also integrate responsible sourcing practices for critical metals and minerals into their supply chains, ensuring that the foundations of the clean energy transition are as ethical and sustainable as its outcomes," says Bovim. Following the recent Africa Energy Forum in Cape Town, Bovim urges energy and mining leaders to embed sustainable resource extraction at the heart of their strategies. 'The glitter of clean energy cannot blind us to its true environmental cost. We must integrate responsible resourcing across the entire value chain, from design and exploration through to closure and rehabilitation. Only then can we build an energy future that is both clean and just.' He outlines concrete steps: - Champion global standards: Back initiatives such as the ICMM's Nature Positive framework to align mining practices with biodiversity and climate goals, or the Global Industry Standard for Tailings Management (GISTM) for specific regulations on tailing dam management. - Mandate transparency: Require energy and mining firms to disclose social and environmental performance, enabling investors and communities to make informed decisions. - Empower communities: Ensure local voices guide project planning, monitoring, and benefit‑sharing, transforming passive observers into active partners. - Invest in innovation: Prioritise technologies that enable proactive, data-driven management across the full lifecycle of mining and energy projects, from exploration to closure and rehabilitation. As Europe and North America draw closer to their net‑zero targets, the burden of raw‑material extraction falls heavily on African nations. Bovim stresses that responsible production is inseparable from responsible consumption. 'If we ask developing communities to shoulder the environmental risks of our clean‑energy technologies, we owe them the highest standards of safety, transparency, and remediation. 'That is the only way to ensure the energy transition benefits people and the planet alike,' he concludes.

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