In Africa and no exception to Zambia, artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) has long been framed among livelihood lifelines for the rural poor. However, this narrative risks blinding policymakers to an emerging crisis. In protected areas including Game Management Areas (GMAs) around Luangwa and Kafue National Parks, a dramatic conflict unfolds between conservation agenda and the surge of ASM.

The Luangwa and Kafue landscapes are national and global conservation icons. Luangwa for example, home to the iconic South Luangwa National Park and its surrounding GMAs, represents a biodiversity hotspot teeming with elephants, lions, endemic species, supports community based natural resource management systems, and underpins a growing eco tourism sector. These areas are cornerstones in Zambia’s climate finance framework, drawing millions through nature-based solutions (NbS) like carbon credits, REDD+ projects, and protected area management funded by international donors.

But on the ground, the surge in ASM (largely informal and driven by poverty, commodity price booms, and weak enforcement) endangers this delicate balance, risking irreversible ecological damage and the collapse of green financing streams. The miners, often locals or migrants, target alluvial gold and gemstones along riverbanks, using rudimentary tools that negatively affect the environment. In many of these places, artisanal miners are moving into traditional wildlife corridors, often with little or no formal land rights or environmental clearance. A visit to Kamabwe mining area in Mukungule GMA in Mpika highlighted the socio-ecological impacts posed by unregulated ASM. The water pumped from the nearby stream for processing gold, using mercury, is pumped back into the stream that eventually feeds into the Luangwa River. The result of all this is deforestation, river degradation, pollution from mercury, and fragmentation of wildlife habitats. Mercury use for gold extraction affects both aquatic life and people handling it, and a direct sabotage of NbS projects that promise ecosystem restoration. Conservation initiatives like the REDD+ project around Luangwa GMAs, rely on intact habitats to deliver verifiable carbon sequestration and biodiversity co-benefits. When ASM encroaches, it fragments these habitats, driving human-wildlife conflict as displaced animals raid crops and villages.

The direct impact on conservation is clear, but the risk to climate finance is subtler and more dangerous. Climate finance mechanisms (whether carbon markets, REDD+ funds, or blended NbS grants) rest on three pillars: credible baselines, measurable outcomes, and institutional trust. When ASM driven degradation is unchecked, all three pillars weaken. Deforestation and land use change from ASM can erode the very carbon stocks that projects are supposed to protect. Habitat fragmentation can undermine reported biodiversity gains and make it harder to demonstrate additionality (i.e. climate finance is changing trajectories). In the worst cases, active mining within or near project areas can lead to reputational shocks, skepticism, and early withdrawal of funding. A 2022 study by CIFOR highlighted how similar ASM booms in Zimbabwe’s conservancies halved wildlife populations within years, and Zambia faces the same trajectory. Investors, wary of leakage in carbon accounting where protected areas leak emissions due to adjacent threats, are scaling back commitments. If unchecked, the proliferation of ASM poses an existential threat to conservation gains, demanding urgent policy reckoning.

Moreover, ASM exacerbates social fractures that erode conservation’s community buy-in. In areas surrounding both North and South Luangwa National Parks, where customary land tenure under dual governance systems governs GMAs, miners exploit governance gaps between chiefs and the state. This ambiguity creates a governance vacuum: conservation authorities, local governments, and traditional leaders may all have overlapping responsibilities, but no one exercises clear control over mining activity. Unregulated mining syndicates clash with wildlife scouts, fostering insecurity that deters tourism. Women and youth, core to conservation labour, bear disproportionate burdens from polluted water sources and lost farming land.

Critics might claim ASM provides quick jobs, outpacing slow NbS benefits. Yet, this myopic view ignores long-term impoverishment. Artisanal miners earn sporadically, exposed to health hazards like silicosis and chemical poisoning, while conservation offers sustainable alternatives like eco-tourism guiding or beekeeping. The Mining Local Content Policy nods formalization, but enforcement fades in remote GMAs. Without intervention, GMAs risk becoming a cautionary tale: a lost ark where climate finance evaporates as pick and axes prevail.

In short, the current surge of ASM in GMAs such as Luangwa, Kafue and other GMAs is not just a local land use problem, but a systemic risk to the country’s conservation agenda and its ambition to attract climate finance through NbS. If left unmanaged, it could turn iconic landscapes into contested, degraded frontiers that neither sustain wildlife nor reliably lock in carbon. Therefore, the next step is not to demonise ASM, but to design realistic, context sensitive solutions that bring it under the rule of law and align it with the goals of conservation and climate finance.

Author
Solomon Mwampikita is a Natural Resources Management Expert, currently serving as the Lead Researcher on Climate Change and Environment at the Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD).