How Zimbabwe police protect illegal mining

Zimbabwe's environmental laws are among the strictest on the continent when it comes to preventing illegal mining, yet along the banks of the Mutare River, these regulations exist in name only. The story is as much about a river in peril as it is about the systemic corruption that allows its destruction to continue.

On a chilly June morning in 2025, I witnessed young men wading into the shallows of the Mutare River, armed with shovels, picks, and plastic basins. They are strong, desperate, and unemployed, extracting gold from the river with crude tools. For them, every gram recovered represents a lifeline, a temporary escape from grinding poverty. On a good day, one miner might earn up to US$35 from half a gram of gold, enough to make the risk seem worthwhile.

But these miners are also breaking the law. Alluvial mining, which wreaks havoc on rivers through erosion, mercury, and cyanide contamination, was criminalised in December 2024. Mercury alone—burned to release gold particles—poisons water, soil, and fish. Communities downstream, once reliant on these rivers for irrigation, livestock, and drinking water, now face a toxic legacy.

Yet despite the law, enforcement is failing. The reason is painfully clear: police officers have become part of the problem. Miners "register" with them, paying cash bribes to avoid arrest. On one visit to Magetsi, I witnessed Tee, a mining crew leader, hand a folded US$5 note to a plainclothes officer. The transaction was casual, almost routine. The miners' tension evaporated, the work resumed, and the river continued to suffer.

It is not an isolated incident. Over several days along a 10-kilometre stretch of the Mutare River—from Penhalonga past Africa University to the Odzi River—similar accounts were corroborated by miners, locals, and civil society. Bribes are frequent, police patrols are tipped off, and enforcement crackdowns target only those who refuse to pay. The law has teeth, but the teeth are in the wrong hands.

This is a story of dual failure. For the miners, illegal gold mining is a choice born of survival in a collapsed economy. But for the police, it is predation, a system of extortion that undermines the very law they are meant to uphold. Government agencies such as the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) insist enforcement is a shared responsibility, yet the corruption on the ground tells a different tale. Ministers and police officials either ignore or deflect accountability, while the river suffers irreversible damage.

The Mutare River, once a source of life, now winds through forests and farmland as a corridor of silt, sludge, and toxic waste. More than 1,500 kilometres of Zimbabwe's rivers have been degraded by alluvial mining, according to EMA figures, but statistics cannot capture the full human and ecological cost. Fish have vanished, banks collapse, and communities live with poisoned water, all while gold changes hands and bribes keep the system lubricated.

The lesson here is stark: laws without enforcement, and governance without integrity, are meaningless. Zimbabwe can criminalise illegal mining until the cows come home, but unless the rot within the institutions meant to enforce the law is addressed, the Mutare River and others like it will continue to bleed.

The miners, police, and the government all have roles to play. Survival and corruption cannot be excuses for environmental destruction. Without accountability, the Mutare River will not just be a cautionary tale—it will be a testament to the consequences of turning a blind eye to systemic corruption and ecological neglect.