By: Claude Kabemba and Monica Mbugua

In 2025, a tailings dam – which is designed to store waste byproducts – collapsed at the Sino-Metals Leach Zambia copper mine. It released toxic waste into the Kafue river system, destroying aquatic life, agricultural crops and livelihoods, and contaminating the entire drinking supply of the nearest city of 700 000 people. The mining company undertook to pay all costs relating to the clean-up, which will take years to rectify and will likely run into billions of dollars.

It was a catastrophic event, but it could have been prevented if the company had adhered to environmental laws and international standards on tailings, critical for the management of mining waste.

We know that the local community had voiced concerns repeatedly long before the dam failed, but these signals were not acted upon. In this way, the Zambian example shows how communities are often the first to observe environmental or operational changes, from water availability and dust to safety or access issues. These observations can provide early indications of emerging risks, particularly in contexts where conditions change quickly. Yet their experience is often treated as qualitative or anecdotal, even though they point to a need for technical, regulatory or financial intervention.

Early warning signs – particularly those related to environmental pressures or community concerns – are not always prioritised amid competing operational demands. Even well-designed systems can struggle to translate early signals into operational decisions, especially when responsibilities are distributed across large organisations, and where regulatory control is weak.

Community experience is often the earliest available indicator of emerging risk. Local residents, or even workers themselves, may raise concerns around water stress or dust, long before they appear in formal reports. But at the time, they are treated as engagement or reputational matters rather than operational signals, becoming a missed opportunity for early intervention.

Local communities suffer the most

When these missed signals fail to avert disaster, it’s often the same communities who pay the heaviest cost in polluted lands and lost jobs.

This was also the case at Jagersfontein mine in South Africa in 2022. When a tailings dam here broke, 200 houses were destroyed and two people died with a third reported missing. Across the continent, mining disasters occur with alarming regularity. Communities bear the consequences, while protection is minimal and reparations, if offered at all, fail to reflect the depth of the violations inflicted on lives, livelihoods, and environments

In contexts where state or regulatory capacity is limited, accountability mechanisms may struggle to function effectively. No wonder, then, that communities are often sceptical or outright hostile when new mining operations start up.

How can risk be minimised? 

In our work across the mining sector, we see early warning information lose momentum in three common ways.

First, emerging risks are reframed as communication or stakeholder issues, rather than considered alongside production, safety or environmental decisions. Second, action is delayed while additional verification, approvals or reporting cycles take place. Finally, information is fragmented across teams, including social, environmental, technical and financial, with no single view of cumulative risk.

In short, the information is received, but it’s not integrated into decision-making.

Rear-facing reporting practices compound this issue. Large corporations rely on a set cycle of formal reporting, with quarterly updates and retrospective annual results. But community impacts and environmental pressures evolve all the time. So, by the time an issue appears in a formal report, it may already be well established. Decision-makers are left responding to past conditions rather than emerging ones.

Innovative new platforms address the issues

Some new initiatives are trying to remedy the situation. Protect the West Coast (PTWC) has announced Ripl, a platform which aims to give citizens a space to voice concerns regarding mining on beaches on South Africa’s West Coast. Another is the African Mining Accountability Platform (AMAP), which is built to connect mining companies, governments and local stakeholders. AMAP reflects a growing shift towards real-time, community-driven reporting rather than delayed, fragmented feedback loops.

Such initiatives give communities the ability to record concerns as they arise, from their mobile phones, wherever they are. This is in line with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which encourages civil society to speak up and be part of the process of ensuring more sustainable and ethical mining takes place.  

Mining companies are uniquely positioned to respond. As operators, they are closest to both operations and communities, and primary responsibility rests with them. This is especially important as mining activities often take place where regulators are weak or lack capacity.

Boards, investors and regulators can do their part to support ethical and responsible mining by making sure they have timely, credible information to assess risks. By making early warning signals visible and shared, communities can get a swifter response.

Risks can’t be eliminated. They’re part of doing business in a warming world. But when companies identify and respond to emerging risks early, they can protect operational resilience, local communities, and investor value. By amplifying information flows through AMAP, these warning signals have a greater chance of being received, and action is lower-cost and more effective. In this way we can protect our communities more effectively and ensure resources are not contaminated or lost – sometimes for decades.

Dr Claude Kabemba is executive director, and Monica Mbugua is research and policy officer, both at South African Research Watch (SARW), an independent nonprofit organization that monitors and advocates for the responsible use of natural resources in Southern Africa.