Impacts of Trace Metals Pollution of Water, Food Crops, and Ambient Air on Population Health in Zambia and the DR Congo

Table 2

Most salient negative impacts of the mines and metallurgic industries among residents in surveyed locations in Zambia and the DR Congo.

Noise pollution; Modern mines use heavy and loud equipment that frequently causes blasting that imposes intolerable stress upon the local people	Indigenous rights; Local people do not have recognized land rights and mines frequently hide behind this to apply double standards in treating them	Displacement; Displacement of people including forced resettlement in areas without adequate resources remains a common feature of mining development	Human rights violations; Opposition to mine operations is suppressed using force and military or police deployment, violating human rights through torture, arrest, and harassment
Employment and livelihoods; One of the positive incentives to allow mining operations is employment that often fails to materialize causing high poverty among the local communities	Treatment of women and children; Often, mining jobs are restricted to men, thus alienating children’s and women’s livelihoods such that unaccompanied men suffer severe prostitution and high incidence of HIV and AIDS	Health hazards; Contamination of available resources, as well as soil and air, contributes to increased levels of toxic build-up in peoples’ bodies. Several chronic respiratory issues are widespread, particularly in children and old people	Environmental degradation; Mining exploitation of natural resources has taken a toll on the quality of land, water availability and quality, forest and soil resources, and rainfall patterns, undermining local livelihoods in the process

^aNearly all respondents recognized that industrial operations have impacted negatively on their household livelihoods with pollution of water, degradation of farmland, reduction in vegetation growth and forest natural resources, and population’s danger with health issues.