Implications of Bikita Minerals’ Corporate Social Responsibility on Environmental Rights of Mining Communities in Bikita District, Zimbabwe

While Bikita Minerals Limited (BML) is undertaking life-changing corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects, very few of these projects focus on environmental protection and the direct impacts of the mine’s activities on the mining community and are informed by pieces of legislation with provisions that can promote corporate social environmental responsibility (CSER). Using a qualitative research approach, this study explores the implications of BML’s CSR on the environmental protection and environmental rights (ER) of mining communities in Bikita district, Zimbabwe. The objectives of this research study were to analyse the inclusion of environmental issues in BML’s business philosophy and explore the contribution of BML’s CSR to broad-based ERs. Research findings show that BML invested much in CSR projects that focus on community problems extrinsic to the firm’s activities, although its operations are assaulting both ecocentric and anthropocentric ERs in the mining area. In view of this, if CSR is to realize one of its main objectives (promotion of nature and human-centred ERs), Zimbabwean authorities should promulgate a comprehensive piece of legislation that spells out CSER programmes if ERs are to receive equal attention given to other rights. This research, therefore, recommends future research on assessing how CSR contributes to the ER of future generations since most projects seem to be targeting persons in the now despite mining destroying the environment that we ‘borrowed from our children’.