Tons of sand extracted from the villages of Ganzourgou are heading for Ouagadougou to try to meet the strong demand of a capital in the midst of a real estate boom. If this business brings some currencies to the local populations, mostly poor, the environmental disaster thickens from year to year and requires urgent action. Report.
Gaping pits, galleries and bare tree trunks, such is the hideous face of the sand extraction sites in the commune of Zorgho, located in the Central Plateau region, 110 km east of Ouagadougou.
Manual sand extraction is carried out both on sandy banks and in the bed of watercourses.
On the morning of Thursday, December 22, 2022, at 10 a.m., at the Kolgkomin site in the village of Bangbili, located 6 km from the town of Zorgho, a dozen women, children and young people, armed with brooms, shovels or dabas are busy extracting the sand.
A commodity that is becoming scarce day by day and pushing the population to dig galleries on the sides of waterways.
Well into her sixties, Christine Kaboré has been collecting sand as her main activity for more than a year.
It allows him to improve his daily life and take care of his grandchildren.
“You have to collect the sand for several days to have the quantity of a dumpster or a tricycle and then wait four months before having a buyer,” she suggested.
Not far from her, a young woman of 35, Zénabo Tapsoba, a bucket on her head, pours sand on a heap she was able to build the day before.
“I can go a month without selling a single load of tricycles. Sometimes it’s only one tricycle load that I manage to sell. Since I started, four months ago, I’ve only been able to dispose of four tricycle loads,” she says.
The money from her hard work allows her to support the family and pay for her children’s schooling.
Night and day, the rivers are scrutinized and scraped by the inhabitants to satisfy the demand of buyers, in the dry season as well as in the rainy season, despite the closure of certain sites.
For the Provincial Director (DP) in charge of the Environment of Ganzourgou, the captain of Waters and Forests, Pascal Balima, people go down to the lowlands to collect the sand with dishes and shovels without forgetting those who extract with machines.
“Owners of tricycles buy and store them near the tracks while waiting for the rainy season to speculate,” he confides.
In some villages of the commune of Zorgho, customary chiefs have prohibited the collection of sand during the rainy season in order to preserve the roads and market gardening activities practiced around the banks.
The village chief of Wayalgui V2, in the commune of Boudry, 35 km from Zorgho, says it has been five years since dumpsters and tricycles started collecting sand in his village.
“There are private individuals who come with machines to extract the sand and resell to wholesalers,” explains the village chief.
Negative environmental and human impacts
The collection of sand accelerates the silting up of waterways, destroys plant species and causes mechanical soil erosion. It disrupts the ecological functions of natural ecosystems, leads to the destruction of plant cover and the intensification of erosion.
The excavations thus created accentuate the process of erosion, land degradation and cause landslides and landslides which are quite frequent on mining sites.
The galleries expose the roots of the trees which end up falling due to the winds and the rain”, assures the DP of the environment of Ganzourgou.
He specifies that the silting up of rivers reduces the quantity of blue gold necessary for market gardening and the animals that drink there.
“When the sand collectors dig galleries on the edges of the lowlands, they destroy at the same time the trees which end up falling and the vegetation is impacted”, he underlines.
According to the senior environmental technician, Kiswendsida David Kiendrébéogo, with the runoff effect, the land degrades and as Zorgho is a sandy area, the edges of the ravines become wide and cause the surrounding trees to fall.
To reduce the harmful effects of this activity on the environment, awareness and information actions are carried out in Zorgho for the benefit of the population.
The provincial department in charge of the environment of Ganzourgou multiplies radio programs to raise awareness about soil preservation.
Kiswendsida David Kiendrébéogo asks the town hall to adopt texts to regulate the collection of sand in Ganzourgou and to apply prison sentences.
Aggregate taxes levied
Two agents for the collection of the tax on aggregates on behalf of the municipality of Zorgho support those of the environment.
The sergeant of the Waters and Forests, Saïdou Kaboré, specifies that the taxes are collected on the loads of sand according to the templates of the dumpsters.
“Semi-trailers pay 10,000 FCFA per trip and the others 5,000 FCFA in the towns and communes of Zorgho”, he says.
The person in charge of territorial development of the special municipal delegation of Zorgho, works with the police station and the gendarmerie who support him during his awareness tours.
“We have taken a deliberation which is not yet effective where the tax will be increased to 15,000 CFA francs if the sand is taken from the prohibited areas. To this is added 10,000 F if the vehicle papers are not up to date,” he explains.
According to him, the villages of Bogoré and Sapaga prohibit collection at the start of the rainy season until December.
In the village of Wayalgui V2, the chief confides that the taxes are paid to the commune of Boudry.
According to him, large vehicles pay 10,000 CFA francs, small ones 5,000 CFA francs, but indigenous tricycles do not pay taxes.
Soil recovery alternative
The president of the special delegation of Zorgho, Valentin Badolo notes that the collection of sand in Ganzourgou is not organized.
He wants the creation of sand quarries and the implementation of soil recovery initiatives.
Mr. Kiendrébéogo recommends the replacement of certain species destroyed at the level of the banks.
“We have no budget allocated to reforestation, but each year, the Hors Zone gold mines, based in the commune of Mogtédo and the Sanbrado Mining Company (SOMISA-SA) in Boudry, accompany us with plants” , he adds.
For him, an environmental assessment to measure the effects of this activity on the environment in each municipality is desired and the consideration of certain actions in their Municipal Development Plan (PCD).
Possible solutions
Sand mining, if poorly managed, can have negative environmental effects in areas with fragile ecosystems.
Innovative solutions must be found to replace sand in the construction of roads and buildings to combat this environmental catastrophe.
Prohibiting the collection of sand in the short term, supporting the town hall with tree planting, finding activities for the natives so that they stop the extraction of sand, are proposals by Mr. Kiendrébéogo.
As for the provincial director of the environment, the town halls must use the Mining Development Fund to carry out reforestation activities.
Source: Burkina Information Agency