Since 2018, the Government of Zimbabwe has pursued the attainment of an Upper Middle-Income status under its Vision 2030 National Development Agenda which identified mining as a strategic driver of economic growth. As mining expanded into rural areas, vast tracks of land traditionally occupied by subsistence farmers, pastoralists and other rural communities were increasingly allocated to mining companies for mineral extraction, fundamentally changing land use across Zimbabwe's rural districts.

This placed rural communities and mining companies in direct competition over the same land and natural resources. Communities sought to protect the land, water and livelihoods on which they depend, while mining companies exercised rights granted under State-issued mining licences to access and extract mineral resources. The result was growing tension between Zimbabwe's national development priorities and the constitutional rights of mining affected communities to a safe, healthy and sustainable environment.

In 2019, nine mining affected rural youth from Kowo Village in Administrative Ward 8 of Mutoko Rural District, comprising subsistence farmers and pastoralists, realised that individual complaints against mining impacts were not stopping environmental destruction or protecting public health. Public institutions received isolated complaints, while mining companies dealt with affected communities one village at a time, even though the impacts extended across entire districts.

These individuals began recruiting other mining affected rural youth into one movement with the sole purpose of documenting environmental damage, recording public health impacts and presenting one body of community evidence to the institutions responsible for enforcing the law, including local authorities, regulators, Parliament and Zimbabwe's Chapter 12 Independent Commissions. This organising process gave birth to the Disaster and Environmental Management Trust (DEMT), a registered social movement founded by rural youth to organise mining affected communities, document lived realities and demand accountability that protects environmental and public health rights.