Poverty is prevalent in most gold mining communities in Ghana. Image: The Conversation.
Artisanal small-scale mining has a long history in Ghana, contributing significantly to the country’s gold production.
Poverty is prevalent in most gold mining communities in Ghana. Image: The Conversation.
Artisanal small-scale mining has been practised in Ghana for over a century. In 2018, small-scale miners generated 2.1 million ounces of gold, accounting for 43.1% of total gold production in the country. The sector employs 60% of Ghana’s mining workforce.
But this production has come at a cost: water pollution, land degradation, the destruction of agricultural fields, and the discharge of hazardous elements like mercury into soil and water.
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Over the years, Ghana’s government has attempted to formalise artisanal mining operations. It has tried a complete ban on their operations, military interventions, dialogue, alternative livelihood programmes and community mining. But each intervention has brought a corresponding change in strategy by the miners. The net effect is that they haven’t worked.
As a research scientist, I have studied Ghana’s artisanal small-scale mining sector and the different strategies the government has used. My studies conclude that the way forward has two elements. The government needs to draw up policies that reduce the environmental and human safety risks. At the same time, it needs to take advantage of the sector’s potential to reduce poverty in rural economies.
This would go some way to making the artisanal and small-scale mining sector function for the betterment of mining communities, as large-scale mining businesses do.
My research colleague and I conducted a study in 12 mining communities in Ghana’s western Prestea-Huni Valley district. Farming, small-scale mining and small-scale trading are the main occupations of people living in the area. We collected data between 2015 and 2022. We interviewed informal miners at their pits and collected secondary data from literature on the effects of artisanal and small-scale gold mining. We also examined laws, military interventions and information on abuses and brutalities as reported by online news sites.
Our key findings included:
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We conclude from our findings that command-and-control strategies don’t work. This is because they don’t involve effectively consulting and involving affected communities. They are short-lived and unplanned. They do not address the underlying causes of the problems associated with informal mining.
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The artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector in Ghana is complicated. To address the challenges associated with the sector, a comprehensive strategy incorporating the miners and local communities is required. Policies and actions that address the underlying causes (the reasons people engage in the behaviour in the first place) would be more effective.
The underlying causes of the problem could be economic, such as poverty and unemployment in mining communities. They could be social, such as marginalisation of people in mining communities and the right of the people to seek justice by digging for survival. Institutional causes include lengthy waits, onerous requirements and bureaucracies for miners to obtain new licences. The causes could also be technological, such as the use of heavy equipment, or political (involvement of political figures and “big men”).
We argue that prohibiting and criminalising informal mining won’t work.
New strategies must minimise the detrimental effects of mining while maximising the beneficial ones. These should include:
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Article by Albert Kobina Mensah. Research scientist in soil remediation and mining sector sustainability, Ruhr University Bochum
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Common licence. Read the original article.