Paper No. 8
Presentation Time: 3:35 PM

THE CHALLENGES FOR RESOURCING FUTURE GENERATIONS FROM AN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE


KOTA, Mxolisi1, HEIN, Kim2, MASTER, Sharad2, ABIYE, Tamiru3 and DURRHEIM, Raymond2, (1)Council for Geoscience, Private Bag x112, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa, (2)School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag x3, Wits, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa, (3)School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa, mkota@geoscience.org.za

There is an urgent need to sustainably manage the depletion/replenishment equilibrium of Africa’s vast natural resource endowment in view of the social and economic well-being of the continent and its people. The African Mining Vision is one such initiative which aims to achieve the Millennium Development Goals through the responsible management and beneficiation of the continent’s natural resources.

In order to achieve these goals, including poverty eradication and economic development, access to information needs to be improved by producing appropriate maps and by overcoming challenges related to the governance of the mining and minerals industry. Data analysis, integration and management will be greatly enhanced by the adoption of open collaborative research approaches, such as demonstrated by WAXI, ANESI and AfricaArray, for the greater good of the continent.

Small-scale mining represents an important source of income for the poor and developing communities. However, the sector is hampered by various challenges, including a lack of appropriate regulatory frameworks and knowledge about responsible management practices. Therefore, the sector will greatly benefit from inputs by experts in the establishment of a framework to address environmental and socio-economic challenges.

Most African countries are categorised as water-stressed. In addition, metallogenic entities and aquifers on the continent are often spread over several countries with multiple administrative languages, entailing different geo-data sets with varying degrees of reliability and accessibility.There is an urgent need to implement integrated water management policy interventions to mitigate the challenges of variable rainfall and climate, rapid population growth, damage to water systems and quality and poor mining practices so as to ensure the sustainable management of this scarce resource into the future.

These initiatives can be significantly enabled by integration and dissemination of available and new geo-data sets and information gathered through modern high resolution airborne geophysical and space-borne Earth Observation surveys across the continent.