Ghana’s illegal gold mining industry damages the environment

Water from a polluted river in Ghana is so thick and discolored that an artist was able to use it as paint to depict the environmental devastation caused by illegal gold mining spreading like wildfire in the Western state Africa is rich in this resource.

Mercury is increasingly used to extract gold by miners digging on a large scale in forests and farms, degrading land and polluting rivers to the extent that the charity WaterAid calls it “a Ecocide”.

“I can actually paint with water. It’s terrible,” Israel Derrick Apeti, known as Enil Art, told the BBC.

He and his friend Jay Sterling visited the Pra River – about 200km west of the capital Accra – to make a point about the ongoing environmental disaster because of “galamsey”.

This is the term used by locals to describe illegal mining activities taking place in thousands of locations across the country – including forest areas famous for cocoa farms as well as reserves giant gold.

The West African country is the world’s sixth largest exporter of gold and the second largest exporter of cocoa.

Protesters recently took to the streets of Accra to demand government action to end illegal mining. Police responded by arresting dozens of protesters accused of organizing illegal gatherings. They were later released as anger grew following the arrests.

The hashtags #stopgalamseynow and #freethecitizens were used to encourage youth across Ghana and the diaspora, especially in Canada and the UK, to voice their concerns.

Apeti told the BBC that he decided to contribute to the campaign through art.

“What is art for?” he said and added: “On the way to the river, I just thought maybe I could paint with polluted water. It just came to me like that. So we went there, I tried it and it worked.” .”

Communities along the river – some of the largest in Ghana – lamented to Apeti that the water “used to be so clean that you could see fish and crocodiles living in it”, but it had turned “into a body of water”. golden brown color of Water”.

Ghanaian music stars also contributed greatly to this campaign.

Black Sherif – who hails from the town of Konongo in the Ashanti region, which is heavily affected by illegal mining – stopped his performance at The Tidal Rave Concert in Accra earlier this month to show a video about destruction.

Truth Ofori, who belongs to the group Black Sherif, then sang a patriotic song called “This Is Our Home,” while Stonebowy used his group to perform “Greedy Men,” aimed at the bullies. after galamsey.

The devastation is because the nature of illegal mining has changed – previously, unemployed young men dug with picks, shovels or their bare hands to find gold.

They also rely on panning – washing the residue through a sieve so that the gold settles to the bottom.

But Chinese businessmen – who first moved to Ghana about 18 years ago – have transformed it into a more sophisticated industry.

They were accused of ignoring environmental concerns and taking to heart an age-old saying: “There is no land in Ghana without gold, even in the top land. Ghana is gold.”

Indeed, during colonial times, the country was called the Gold Coast.

Several local businessmen and politicians are suspected of having joined them in what has been dubbed the “gold rush”, buying up cocoa farms and turning them into illegal mining sites.

They were also accused of threatening if a farmer refused to sell their land by digging up footpaths and forcing them to give up their land.

The head of the Ghana Forestry Commission estimates some 4,726 hectares of land – larger than the area of ​​European cities such as Athens and Brussels – have been destroyed in seven of the country’s 16 regions and 34 of the 288 zones. forest conservation. John Allotey was quoted as saying in August.

Agricultural development consultant Dr John Manful told the BBC that “precious land” in the forest belt had been destroyed by gold seekers.

“Small-scale illegal mining has been going on for decades in Ghana,” he said. However, in recent years, it has gotten out of control and has had dire consequences.”

Mining has led to the felling of trees and the clearing of large areas of forest vegetation. Excavators are then used to dig out the topsoil and subsoil.

The soil is then deposited at gold washing plants located on the river and water is pumped to wash away the soil and gravel.

During the washing process, many chemicals, including mercury and cyanide, are used to help separate gold from the soil, polluting large and small rivers.

Highlighting the dangers of this, Dr. George Manful, a former senior official at the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency, said: “Mercury can stay in water for up to 1,000 years. The water in these rivers It’s so cloudy that it’s undrinkable.”

In an interview with local television station Joy FM, he also pointed out that mercury can affect the entire food chain, as it accumulates in fish and can enter crops irrigated with water. .

“We are slowly poisoning ourselves,” Dr. Manful added.

For its part, WaterAid called on the government to take “immediate action to end ecocide”, while the state water agency warned that Ghana risks becoming a water importer by 2030 if illegal mining activities are not limited.

In September, the government said 76 people, including 18 foreigners, had been convicted of illegal mining since August 2021 and that more than 850 others were being prosecuted.

Illegal mining has also affected cocoa production, with the Ghana Cocoa Board saying in 2021 that more than 19,000 hectares of agricultural land had been destroyed in key cocoa growing areas such as the West and Ashanti.

Echoing the board’s concerns earlier this week, chief executive Joseph Boahen Aidoo said production of cocoa – the main ingredient of chocolate – had fallen.

“Yes, it does [taken] a toll on the industry,” he was quoted as saying by Ghana’s Chronicle news site.

Illegal logging also affects other crops. A rice farmer in the Ahafo region told the BBC that she could no longer use the nearby river for irrigation purposes.

She said: “I have to build a whole factory, have to dig deep to find water, this is very expensive.”

The farmer, who requested anonymity, said she is concerned that the crisis will continue if the powerful individuals behind illegal mining are not caught and prosecuted.

“When I saw arrests by the military in poor communities, it was just a symbolic gesture to appear to maintain law and order,” she said. The people who make big money from it are in the office, not in the field.”

The government did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

The gold rush was also fueled by the fact that Global precious metal prices have risen to new heightsand is expected to continue to do so.

As a result, Ghana’s illegal cartels are boosting production.

BBC business correspondent Jewel Kiriungi said the gold was smuggled out – possibly to countries such as the United Arab Emirates, China and India – to be refined, mixed with fusion gold. legal and sold on the international market. a World Service podcast exploring the topic.

The illegal industry is also booming because Ghana, although rich in resources, is facing its most severe economic crisis in a generation, with worsening unemployment and rising costs of living. escalate.

As a result, many poor or unemployed people – especially in rural areas – worked for illegal corporations or simply mined gold themselves, earning up to 2,000 cedis ($125; £96 ) a week – average monthly salary of teachers.

Artist Apeti said that when he visited Pra River, he was told by local people that authorities regularly conduct raids and destroy miners’ equipment.

“But that won’t be enough to stop them from searching for gold, as they will return at night to start mining all over again,” he said.

As protests took place in Accra to highlight the destruction, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo responded last week by ordered the deployment of naval ships “to ensure the immediate cessation of all mining activities, legal or illegal, in and around these waters”.

But some senior officials in the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) said they did not expect a major crackdown, as many of their supporters in mining areas are linked to galamsey – and the party cannot risk losing votes in December’s general election.

The popularity of galamsey is evidenced by a survey conducted by WaterAid in communities involved in illegal mining in the Upper East region of Ghana, especially Bongo and Bawku West districts.

More than 75% of people surveyed consider it a lucrative source of income even though 97% of them admit it harms the environment and water resources.

“Alarmingly, 79% said health problems, such as chest pain, were directly related to their illegal mining work,” WaterAid added.

When President Akufo-Addo first took office in 2017, he admitted that a number of security officers, businessmen and politicians were involved in the Galamsey case..

He vowed “not only to stop it, to reclaim the land, to get our rivers working again”, but also to help “all the healthy young people involved in this activity find alternative livelihoods”.

With Akufo-Addo set to step down at the end of his two terms, his critics say he has not delivered on his promises and matters have worsened during his tenure, endangering – as he said in 2017 – “the survival of our people”.