Source Internationa in collaboration with the National Agency for Environmental Quality Control (AQUA) of Mozambique and the Environmental Governance Programme (EGP) of UNDP have launched a pilot project on community-based environmental monitoring in the Tete province in the center of Mozambique.
What is EGP ?
The aim of the EGP is to integrate Environment and Human Rights into the Governance of the Mining Sector.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Swedish EPA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched in 2014 the Environmental Governance Programme (EGP) for Sustainable Natural Resource Management, focusing on the mining sector. It draws upon the combined governance, environmental and extractive sector expertise of the two agencies and their partners.
Using the nexus between the environment and human rights as a lens, the EGP takes an integrated approach to sustainable natural resource management, that focuses on addressing the drivers of conflict, environmental degradation, inequality, exclusion, and poverty simultaneously.
The pilot project
The pilot project will look at water issues in the Moatize district, where a large-scale metallurgical coal mine started operating in 2011. Local communities are concerned with the potential water and air pollution and its consequences, as most of them rely on water for subsistence agriculture and fishing. The proximity of the mining operations to tributaries of the great Zambeze river also indicate the potential for contamination that goes far beyond the district of Moatize.
For the past ten years,local communities in Moatize have been facing significant environmental and linked social impacts from mining operations. The environmental impacts includes water and dust pollution, water grabbing and deforestation. These have led to health problems and an increase of social conflicts. The conflicts between communities and mine companies are mainly linked to land and water grabbing.
