The Impact of Solid Minerals Exploitation in Plateau State: An Environmental Study

Abstract

Following agitations about environmental degradation, a regulatory Mining Law was promulgated in 1946. This law was however neither strictly enforced nor retroactively applied to make colonial miners liable for the environmental devastation. Subsequent mining activities were supposed to be accomplished strictly according to the mining law, however, there was no such enforcement. The objective of the study is to assess the impact of tin mining on the environment of the Plateau with respect to land degradation, extent of infringement of the mining laws, and to underscore the need for reclamation, restoration and rehabilitation alternatives for the devastated land. The methodology consists of primary and secondary sources of data collection. The primary sources include administration of structured questionnaires, interviews with mining stakeholders and the author's personal academic background experience as a Mining Engineer. The secondary data was generated from Internet, libraries, professional journals, books, articles and papers. The Study revealed that about 316km2 of arable land was devastated in the 100 years of tin mining on the Jos Plateau out of which only 13km2 has been reclaimed. The activities of tin mining contributed to socio-economic growth and development of the Northern Region and Nigeria which include amongst others, economic growth, cultural/tribal integration, transfer of technology and development of agricultural/ irrigation of temperate crops. The study proffered a number of recommendations and implementation strategies. These include among others: (1) that the devastated land be surveyed for the purpose of delineation into socio-economic Shelter-belts and (2) That the Federal Government should accord priority attention to the issue of land degradation of arable of the Plateau. The strategies for implementation of the respective aforementioned recommendations are: That a scientific study be conducted for the devastated land with the view of delineating the area into Shelter-belts for the purposes of Recreational, Aqua-culture/Fisheries, Urban expansion and Agricultural development; and that a Special Environmental Commission be created and funded to oversee the scientific delineation of the area into socio-economic Shelterbelts and subsequently, embark on their reclamation, restoration and rehabilitation.