By Staff reporter Buhera, Zimbabwe – On the dusty plains of Buhera, where once only cattle grazed and children played freely, a new kind of unease hangs in the air. At the heart of the tension is lithium mining, driven largely by Chinese companies, whose operations have left deep scars on both the land and its people.
A disturbing image of a dog hanging in distress from mining scaffolding has become a powerful metaphor for the wider suffering endured
by the community. Locals say it represents more than animal cruelty — it is a symbol of how both people and th e environment are being trapped in a system that benefits outsiders while leaving destruction behind.
For villagers who have lived off farming for generations, the arrival of lithium miners has disrupted everyday life. Grazing land has been fenced off, streams once relied upon for water are polluted, and ancestral graveyards lie under threat of being moved.
“They treat us like we are strangers on our own land,” said one villager. “Even the animals that have always been part of our lives are no longer safe.”
Community leaders point to how forests have been cleared, rivers silted, and farmland degraded. Promises of jobs and development have often turned out to be short-term or reserved for outsiders. Meanwhile, the wealth generated by lithium — a mineral critical for global electric car batteries — flows overseas, leaving locals with dust, noise, and broken ecosystems.
For villagers, the dog has come to represent their own s ituation: voiceless, trapped, and struggling for survival in the shadow of an imposing influence of the Chinese.
As a call for Accountability, civil society groups in Zimbabwe such Centre Resource National gvt have urged the government to enforce stricter environmental and labor regulations. The have also called local mining companies to respect on local custorms’ human dignity and animal welfare. The China Index 2024 https://china-index.io/ commissioned by China in the world (CITW) a Taiwan-based civil coalition confirms some of the issues and concerns that have been raised by Zimbabwean civil society
