The National Environment Management Authority has urged Lamu stone miners to join cooperative societies to ensure proper regulation of the sector.
The current arrangement where the miners are scattered and working individually, makes it hard for the authority to regulate their activities.
Lamu has over 2,000 stone miners, most of whom are found in Manda-Maweni within Manda Island and the Nairobi area in Mpeketoni, Lamu West.
Speaking on Monday, Lamu Nema director James Kamula said the fact that miners in the county are not in cooperatives, has made it hard for the authority to hold them accountable for the carelessness with which they continue to operate in the region.
He said the miners continue to leave behind a large number of abandoned quarries that have not been procedurally closed off to ensure they don’t cause accident and also communicate to the public of their hazardous nature.
He said it has become a challenge for Nema to regulate small-scale mining activities like those in Lamu, adding that they are currently engaging the Ministry of Mining to compel the miners to form cooperative societies.
“Small-scale mining activities are a challenge for Nema to regulate. We’re in engagements with the Ministry of Mining to have them join cooperatives before they are given mining permits. That will make it easy for us to hold them accountable in that field,” Kamula said.
Kamula said quarry workers in the region have been leaving exhausted mines exposed, contrary to the environmental regulations.
“Once they are in groups, they will be easily regulated and controlled as permits will only be issued to specific mining sites. Once they are done with excavating, they are supposed to backfill before moving to new sites. That is currently not happening,” he said.
Kamula warned that such exposed mines are possible death traps for the surrounding community if not backfilled in due course.
Manda-Maweni Quarrying Cooperative Society chairperson Ben Ojuok cited the prolonged drought as a key hinderance to effective backfilling as the ground is too hard.
“Effective backfilling can only happen during rainy season. In the meantime, we are unable to do so,” he said.
