News of Rich Mineral Reserves in Burundi Forest Reserve Sparks Debate

The announcement of tin and coltan deposits potentially worth tens of billions of dollars “discovered” beneath a forest reserve has taken Burundi by storm, raising questions about its veracity and concerns about the communities and wildlife that would be displaced in an effort to start mining.

The news was presented by executives at the Burundi Metal Company (BUMECO) to President Évariste Ndayishimiye during a visit to the company’s mine in the northern province of Kirundo in July.

BUMECO’s general manager, Gaspard Ngendakumana, said that just one of the mine’s galleries contains 12.7 million metric tons of ore, worth more than $50 billion. According to Thomas Ndacayisaba, a BUMECO shareholder, Belgian colonists sealed a tunnel they had used to mine covertly in what is today Murehe Reserve, which overlaps with BUMECO’s concession. He added it was “filled in and concreted over” when they left, in an attempt to erase traces of the area’s mineral deposits.

Murehe Reserve

Murehe Reserve forms part of the Lacs du Nord Aquatic Landscape, 150 kilometers (90 miles) northeast of Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura. Established in 2006, this 30,000-hectare (74,000-acre) protected area also includes Lake Rwihinda, recognized as an important bird area by BirdLife International.

More than 60 bird species have been recorded here, including the vulnerable papyrus yellow warbler (Calamonastides gracilirostris), and large breeding colonies of great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo), black herons (Egretta ardesiaca), and black-crowned night herons (Nycticorax nycticorax). Populations of all these species have declined steeply, according to BirdLife’s 2021 assessment, in response to decreasing water levels and increasing fishing and agriculture.

Lacs du Nord was established with the intent of integrating community management, agriculture and conservation of the area’s lakes and wetlands; but the area is surrounded by some of the highest population densities in Burundi, and according to a 2010 assessment by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wetlands have been extensively converted into rice and sugarcane farms, with farmers planting a variety of crops on the hillsides above.

According to the state-run National Institute for Nature Conservation (INCN), the 6,000-hectare (14,800-acre) Murehe Reserve is now home to more than 1,000 households. This includes many migrants from the surrounding areas, thousands of Rwandan refugees, and long-term Burundian refugees in Rwanda who were repatriated in the late 1990s. The more recent settlers arrived in 2004 and 2005 as a result of prolonged drought that affected the entire Bugesera natural region that includes Kirundo province. The government also settled around 40 Indigenous Batwa households in this area.

As arable land on hillsides was taken up, people established themselves deeper in the forest, on the shores of the lakes, and drained marshes to grow rice, tobacco and sorghum.

Several researchers have challenged what the Burundian authorities have described as a ”discovery” at Murehe. A retired German engineer, who worked for many years in Burundi and elsewhere, was quoted by a local media outlet as saying that these veins are listed in documents available from Burundi’s geological services departments, as well as at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium, the former colonial power here.

An official from Burundi’s mining regulator, the OBM, who asked to remain anonymous for his own safety, said the mine was opened up by OBM agents in the 1980s. “Murehe used to be a mining concession, where only artisanal mining of cassiterite and coltan could be done,” he told Mongabay. “After many years without mining activity, trees grew and Murehe became a reserve.”

The official also said that the figures announced by BUMECO aren’t to be trusted. He told Mongabay that calculating the extent and value of a deposit would normally be documented in a feasibility study and sent to the OBM for analysis before being presented to the country’s president. “At OBM, we don’t know what studies were carried out to reach such conclusions,” he said.

Fears over impact of mining

Environmentalists have also expressed concerns about the impact that mining could have on the entire ecosystem.

Chantal Kwizera, a specialist in water resource management, warned of potential damage to the Bugesera region’s water bodies. “Current mining practices, as can be seen at other mining sites, are poor. These expose the area to erosion, where streams and rivers are polluted by runoff from the mining sites,” the University of Burundi professor told Mongabay.

She said plans to set up a mineral processing plant at Murehe are dangerous because it will pollute the water on which local populations depend. “Any activity that affects the quality and quantity of water must stop.”

Ignace Mfatavyanka, who heads the OBM’s offices in the central-eastern and northern parts of the country, underlined the importance of taking necessary measures to ensure the environment and residents’ health will be protected. He said BUMECO will be required to submit a feasibility study, which will be thoroughly analyzed by the two ministries concerned. He added the company’s work will be regularly monitored.

Burundi’s mining code stipulates that the feasibility study must clearly set out how homes will be protected, as well as how the company will compensate communities to help them relocate if they feel they are at risk.

But Albert Mbonerane, president of ACVE, a local nature restoration organization, said the OBM doesn’t have the resources to carry out its role of ensuring compliance with social and environmental impact mitigation measures. He pointed out that there’s been no regulator in the Ministry of Environment since it was merged with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Tourism in 2019. “The environment has been ignored in Burundi. The focus today is on food security. But in our country, agriculture is one of the main destroyers of the environment.”

He also expressed doubts about the effectiveness of Burundi’s mining and environmental codes, which have been repeatedly disregarded.

Before mining operations can start, Burundi’s mining and environmental codes require the minister of energy and mines to request authorization from the minister of environment to conduct studies and determine if a proposed project is compatible with environmental protection.

Mbonerane, a former environment minister, said that in the absence of an independent ministry in charge of the environment, there’s no one to ensure that these procedures will be respected. “I don’t believe that the Murehe forest will be protected. When I see how logging is done, how contracts are won, I get the impression that the concept of environmental and social impact assessment doesn’t exist. Even if it does, I know of places where things have been done for what I would call economic interests. Contracts were awarded easily.”

Defending local people’s rights

Human rights activists have also mobilized to defend the rights of people living in the area surrounding the reserve. Activists say that mining would damage the entire ecosystem and have a serious impact on the residents who depend on its natural resources.

Most residents Mongabay spoke to at Murehe said they weren’t opposed to being relocated out of the reserve, but raised concerns that the evictions would be selective, affecting the poor while allowing the rich or well-connected to stay.

Matore Juvénal, one of the residents, said he fears losing his home and crops, as well as access to the forest for beekeeping and grazing his livestock.

Fabien Segatwa, a lawyer, said mining here will be accompanied by violations of residents’ human rights. “It will cause irreparable damage and could amount to dispossession, forced eviction and arbitrary displacement, which are prohibited by international law.”

Segatwa and others say they’re concerned about the lack of detailed reports from BUMECO and the limited civic space in Burundi, which prevents activists from carrying out monitoring and producing independent reports.

Mbonerane said that recognizing the ecological value of Murehe’s forest ecosystems, and their importance to local livelihoods and the country’s natural and cultural heritage, should motivate decision-makers to protect them.

But he warned that proposals to mine here, combined with the rate at which the forest is already being degraded, will cause enormous damage. “If the law is applied as it is today, it is impossible for Murehe to remain a native forest, whether naturally or artificially,” he added.

Banner image: BUMECO engineers and management explain to President Évariste Ndayishimiye and his team the minerals found, and how colonists tried to hide them from Burundians. Image by Dieudonné Ndanezerewe for Mongabay.