Mphanda Nkuwa Dam, Mozambique / Articles

From World Rivers Review, October 2006

The China Export-Import Bank agreed in April 2006 to finance the proposed Mphanda Nkuwa Dam on the Zambezi River in Mozambique. The river basin and its delta are already suffering major environmental impacts from numerous dams upstream, including two of Africa's biggest, Cahora Bassa and Kariba. The environmental degradation in turn affects about a

from World Rivers Review

“The Zambezi River is the source of life for our families… [it] is generous and other users along with us benefit from it. We respect all of them as good neighbors, and we especially recognize the important role of Cahora Bassa dam… However, in the 30 years since the dam’s construction, we have lost productive lands along the river and on the islands. The reeds we use have disappeared. Fish in the river have also decreased. In the delta, the River arms are progressively drying up. The mangroves are threatened, and so too is the prawn fishery…”

These are some of the conclusions that a group of 70 subsistence farmers, fishermen and NGO members from the Lower Zambezi River in Mozambique developed in a declaration they presented to government authorities in October 2004. Representatives from the four provinces crossed by the Lower Zambezi came together in the city of Tete, 120 kilometers downstream of Cahora Bassa Dam (the fourth largest dam in Africa) for a three-day workshop. This was the first meeting designed to analyze the river situation from the perspective of subsistence users in Mozambique. Government representatives from the Zambezi Water Management Authority and the Zambezi Development Authority also attended the workshop, which was facilitated by Justiça Ambiental (JA!), a Mozambican environmental justice NGO.

For a couple of weeks in late September, sooty plumes of black smoke billowed from the stacks of the Mozambique Aluminum (Mozal) smelter on the outskirts of the Mozambican capital, Maputo. A year after the plant opened, a cooling tower in the treatment plant corroded and gave way, spewing sulfur dioxide and toxic fluoride into the air. A company official admitted that fluoride was in fact being released, but was quick to claim, "While the black plume now issuing from the top of the treatment plant is unsightly, it is not dangerous."