By Fatou Sillah
The Gambia government is preparing tougher environmental safeguards aimed at holding mining operators accountable for rehabilitating degraded sites, as authorities grapple with illegal extraction and abandoned pits that pose environmental and public safety risks.
Rohey John Manjang, the minister of environment, climate change, and natural resources, told the National Assembly that sand and gravel mining continued to leave behind open pits, exposed surfaces, and degraded land, making stronger enforcement necessary.
Responding to questions from lawmakers, Ms. Manjang said environmental approvals already require operators to rehabilitate mining sites. The greater challenge, she said, has been ensuring compliance, particularly at illegally mined sites and in areas where rehabilitation has been followed by further unauthorized extraction.
“I therefore wish to assure this august assembly that the issue is not that rehabilitation requirements do not exist,” she said. “They are incorporated into the environmental approvals and are subjected to monitoring.”
Ms. Manjang drew a distinction between restoring mined land to its original condition and rehabilitating it for safe and productive use. “Complete restoration,” she said, is often impractical because sand, gravel, and other materials removed during mining cannot simply be replaced.
Instead, rehabilitation seeks to stabilize affected land, reduce safety hazards, and restore its environmental function as much as possible.
The minister acknowledged that existing penalties for operators who fail to rehabilitate mining sites have not always been sufficient to deter violations.
To address those shortcomings, she said, her ministry and the National Environment Agency have reviewed the National Environment Management Act of 1994 and prepared new legislation intended to strengthen environmental regulation and enforcement.
The proposed NEMA bill is expected to be presented to the National Assembly on Oct. 19, with its third reading scheduled for Oct. 29, according to the minister.
Among its provisions would be the introduction of environmental restoration bonds for mining operations. Under such an arrangement, operators would provide financial guarantees intended to ensure that money is available to rehabilitate mining sites if they fail to fulfill their obligations.
Ms. Manjang said the measure would give regulators greater ability to hold operators financially responsible for environmental damage and reduce the risk of rehabilitation costs ultimately falling on the government or affected communities.
Illegal mining, however, remains a significant obstacle, she said. Unauthorized extraction can further degrade land and, in some cases, undo rehabilitation work already carried out.
Addressing the problem will require greater coordination among the National Environment Agency, licensing and enforcement authorities, local government bodies, security agencies, and affected communities, Ms. Manjang said.
She also urged communities to report unauthorized mining early, saying timely intervention could help prevent environmental damage before it becomes more extensive and costly to repair.
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