Mining for Zambia spotlight on the environment

Mining for Zambia cites Phyla’s (formerly BetterWorld) work on land regeneration and power generation

September 2017

We are delighted to be featured in Mining for Zambia’s piece, “Diesel fuel from trees” highlighting the environmental and commercial potential of planting pongamia trees. 

“In what is an environmental world-first, a unique species of tree from India that can produce diesel fuel and other valuable by-products has been successfully planted on an area of disused mine-land outside the Copperbelt town of Chingola. It’s the first stage of a $7.5 million project driven by Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), in partnership with land regeneration experts BetterWorld Energy Zambia. The project, which is being funded in partnership with donor agencies and other financial institutions, will see the planting of 400 000 of the trees over the next three years. The disused mine-land consists of 700 hectares of overburden (waste rock) and tailings (also known as mine dumps) left over from the mining operations of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) in the 1990s, prior to privatisation. The land now belongs to KCM. The trees are expected to produce some 2 ½ million litres of diesel fuel a year for use by KCM’s mining operations, as well as various high-value pharmaceutical biochemicals for export. It is expected to create approximately 2 000 jobs in the local community.”

To read the full article, please visit: https://miningforzambia.com/diesel-fuel-trees/