Other Articles in this Volume:ixx No 2

CINJEL NANDES DICKSON, JOSEPH DANJUMA, ABUBAKAR LAWAN

Published in 2018; Volume:ixx No: 2 Article Number: 3

Tin mining began in Jos-Plateau at the arrival of the British during the pax Britannica. The British came and exposed mining in the area to commercial production and further subsumed the area under the defunct Bauchi province .Tin mining and mines related activities which was one of the major sources of income in the Nigeria before the discovery of oil in commercial quantity has opened a lot of communities in Plateau State to environmental degradation which had appeared in the form of lake, gorges, holes, depletion of top soil, erosion, deforestation and other challenges such as food insecurity, land scarcity and it attendant consequence such as land fragmentation and land disputes among others. This study attempted to examine the relationship between tin mining, environmental degradation and the challenges of development in Plateau state. The study focused on the aftermath of tin mining in the state such as environmental degradation and incidences of the intermittence conflicts that is common with the state which and are associated with mining related activities in the state. Combinations of methods were employed in the study such as survey, historical and expo facto to investigate the causality under study. The secondary sources of data are utilizes in this study and were generated from documentary facts drawn from array of both published and unpublished materials such as text books, journals, newspaper, magazine, conference and seminar papers, internet materials, reports of panel of investigation, report of commission of inquiry. Qualitative tools and observation were utilizes to enhance historical and analytical description of the phenomenon under investigation. It was found out that tin mining has exposed the state to the challenges of environmental degradations and other anomalies such as the basis of intermittence violence and underdevelopment in the state. Recommendations such as compensation and provision of palliative tools to tin mining communities, need for the development of national sustainable environment strategy, religious and cultural tolerance and a lot of others were proffered.

Tin and tin mining, environmental degradation, conflicts and under-development