Under a pale mid-morning sun, Frank Nkulu scans his cropland for signs of life. At the start of this year, his vegetables flourished here in Garneton, in Zambia’s Copperbelt province. Now, the once-fertile soil on the outskirts of Kitwe clings to his boots like wet clay.
Nkulu, 40, is one of dozens of small-scale farmers whose livelihoods were upended in February by the collapse of a tailings facility used to store waste material from mining operations. Official estimates state the facility, part of a mine operated by Sino Metals Leach Zambia, released 50,000 tonnes of acidic effluent into tributaries of the Kafue River – a figure that has been disputed. The toxic flow swept through farmland, contaminated rivers and killed fish. Signs of pollution were detected 100km downstream.
At the time, Sino Metals, a subsidiary of state-owned company China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group, offered its “sincere apologies and regrets” about the spill. Chair Zhang Peiwen told Zambian government ministers: “This disaster has rung a big alarm for Sino Metals Leach and the mining industry,” adding that the company would “go all out to restore the affected environment as quickly as possible”.
Seven months on, for farmers like Nkulu, not much has happened. He has tried to adapt. He has dug traditional wells in hopes of accessing uncontaminated groundwater to revive his fields of tomatoes, onions, okra, aubergine, string beans, cabbage and local vegetables. Some crops planted uphill, farther from the Mwambashi River, show promise. But the wells are shallow, and as the dry season drags on, they are already drying up.
“Nobody has been here to tell us anything about why crops are not growing and why this has happened,” Nkulu said. Sino Metals did not respond to questions about this.
Across communities in Kitwe, and also the neighbouring town of Chambishi, Dialogue Earth found similar scenes: failed crops, decaying maize fields, and vegetables abandoned in acidic, waterlogged soil. Farmers Dialogue Earth spoke to have tried to replant without success.
Desperation is mounting. Just south of Chambishi, 62-year-old Evaristo Musonda and his wife Florence, who have grown tomatoes, onions, aubergine and maize here for nearly a decade, say the land is no longer usable. Their fields lie beside the Chambishi Stream, which emerges from the mine area before joining the Mwambashi River, one of the key tributaries of the Kafue River.
“We found that many fish had died. The water all around us had a strong, unfamiliar smell,” Musonda said. “Later, we realised that all our crops were dying. We tried replanting three times, but nothing grows.”
The spill has deepened food insecurity across the Copperbelt province, Zambia’s industrial heartland. Many downstream farmers were already recovering from multiple seasons of drought. The pollution has left them with little to fall back on.
After suspending Sino Metals’ operations following the February spill, the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) ordered the company to distribute food relief to affected communities. These packages include daily water rations, a monthly 25kg bag of mealie-meal, cooking oil and 500 kwacha cash (USD 21.70), Sino Metals told Dialogue Earth. Residents said the monthly rations lasted no more than a week.
Disputes about pollution levels
In June, the American embassy in Lusaka issued a warning citing “acute heavy metal poisoning” and advising US citizens to avoid the contaminated zone and the Kafue River’s water for at least 100km downstream. This escalated in August, when it issued a health alert ordering the “immediate withdrawal of all US government personnel from Kitwe and nearby areas” affected by the spill. It stated that new information had shown “the extent of hazardous and carcinogenic substances”.
Other embassies also issued warnings, but these claims were dismissed by the Zambian government, whose spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa said that “laboratory results show that pH levels have returned to normal” in the area and that the water was safe to drink.
This dispute came after Drizit Zambia, a South African company hired by Sino Metals to carry out an environmental impact assessment, found the scale of pollution was much more severe than initial reports suggested. It said that 1.5 million tonnes of waste was released, not 50,000 as per official figures, and that 900,000 tonnes was still present in the environment.
But Sino Metals rejected the company’s methodology and terminated its contract the day before the final report was due, according to Drizit. In a statement released at the end of August, the company said it had launched legal proceedings against the Chinese firm.
“We stand by our findings: unless the remaining toxic tailings are removed and safely contained in a properly engineered facility, downstream communities will remain at risk for decades,” it said. The Zambian government, however, is standing by the official figure.
Compensation claims
On 30 May, the government announced a compensation scheme for those affected. As of early September, Sino Metals had paid out 14 million kwacha (USD 592,000). Zambia’s vice president, Mutale Nalumango, said this was a “step in the right direction”. But she added that the full compensation package “must be guided by thorough and independent assessment” which has not yet been completed.
“If the damage to the land and livelihoods proves to be more extensive or long-lasting than initially understood, then further compensation will be necessary and it will be pursued,” she said.
We tried replanting three times, but nothing growsEvaristo Musonda, farmer, Chambishi area
Pamela Sambo, an environmental law lecturer at the University of Zambia and member of the IUCN Environmental Law Commission, says the amount offered is “a drop in the ocean”.
But Sydney Chileya, deputy managing director of Sino Metals, told Dialogue Earth at the end of July that the company was waiting for the government to confirm the full compensation plan, which will happen once the impact assessment has identified the total number of people to be compensated. “When the impact assessment report comes to Sino Metals, we will pay,” he said, adding: “This is a moral issue.”
In the Garneton area, Martha Matambo, 43, used to earn 5,000 kwacha (USD 208) per week from her vegetable plots, which she irrigated from the Mwambashi River. She grew fresh herbs, leeks, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots and peppers – enough to support her six children and two grandchildren. Today, her fields are bare, and the family lives on her husband’s salary of just 1,000 kwacha (USD 42) per month from China Harvest Farms, a wheat and vegetable farm. They have not yet been listed for compensation, she told Dialogue Earth.
Two groups of affected residents are now threatening to sue Sino Metals, demanding immediate compensation.
Wider, ongoing impacts
Downstream, the devastation is not limited to farmland. An estimated 60% of Zambians live in the Kafue basin and depend on the river for their livelihoods. The spill triggered an emergency shutdown of water services to the city of Kitwe. The Kafue flows through five provinces and supports a complex web of economic activities: agriculture, hydroelectric power, fisheries, livestock, manufacturing and tourism. It also provides drinking water for five million Zambians, including in the capital, Lusaka.
The country’s top scientists warn of long-term effects. Kanungwe Kalaba, climate expert and research director at Copperbelt University in Kitwe, says heavy-metal contamination is likely already affecting the food chain across the Copperbelt region and the Kafue basin.
“There will be heavy metal contamination in the entire ecosystem. Its functioning has been disturbed and badly compromised,” he said.
Levels of heavy metal in local food, he noted, now exceed World Health Organization limits.
Lydia Hangulu, a health promotion specialist at the Zambia Consumer Association, warned of emerging risks. “The food chain is contaminated through the water; heavy metals stay in the environment for a very long time,” she said.
“There is a pressing need to find alternative land for affected communities, but where will we find alternative sources of water?”
Hangulu urged authorities to communicate clearly and invest in public education. “We don’t know the damage that was caused, but the effects need to be made known and it requires a proper clean-up process,” she said. This must not be a one-off effort, and it must include ongoing monitoring, she clarified.
‘Compliance and implementation are problematic’
The Sino Metals spill is not the only pollution scandal in Zambia in recent times. Other mining companies have been shut down by the government in recent months for environmental violations.
But as the months go by following February’s spill, the ability of the authorities to deal with such major incidents is facing mounting scrutiny. In May, ZEMA took over the impact assessment after the dispute between Sino Metals and Drizit, though environment minister Mike Mposha stated that Sino Metals would still be footing the bill for the work.
Experts are sceptical of ZEMA’s capacity. “The laws we have in Zambia are in accordance with international good practices, except that compliance and implementation are problematic,” said Sambo, the environmental law expert.
“The Mines Act is beautiful, but it is gathering dust in offices. ZEMA is empowered with enforcement provisions, but they are not actualised.”
Even as communities reel from the disaster, Zambia is pursuing aggressive mining expansion. The government aims to raise annual copper output from 800,000 tonnes to 3 million by 2031, positioning itself as a critical mineral supplier for the global clean-energy transition. President Hakainde Hichilema has said production will hit 1 million tonnes by the end of 2025.
Zambia’s copper strategy rides on the global clean-energy transition. Copper, cobalt, lead, manganese and other critical minerals have become very important for GDP, but also flashpoints. Local communities, increasingly vocal about the costs of mineral extraction, say they see little benefit as their water, soil and air grow more toxic.
In a September speech, Hichilema said: “Our government remains committed to clean and eco-friendly sustainable practices in our endeavour to develop the mining industry. As such, we will strengthen environmental compliance enforcement and hold accountable those who violate our environmental protection laws.” In the same speech, he announced the expansion of another mine in Chambishi operated by Sino Metals’ parent company, China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group, with a USD 500 million investment.
The country’s foreign-exchange earnings remain tethered to extractive industries dominated by foreign investors. Experts say this dynamic undermines the enforcement of environmental safeguards. And as the Sino Metals spill shows, when accidents happen, it is the most vulnerable in Zambia who pay the price.
