"Ghana\u2019s Wildcat Gold Mining Booms, Poisoning People and Nature"

" \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\n Ghana\u2019s Wildcat Gold Mining Booms, Poisoning People and Nature \r\n\r\nAt an unlicensed gold mine in Ghana, men in t-shirts, shorts and rubber boots wade through pools of muddy water laced with mercury, pull out rocks with bare hands and operate a rickety sluice as they search for the precious ore.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nThe ramshackle mine is part of a booming business that is generating livelihoods and informal revenue streams for Ghana\u2019s economy, even as it\u00a0 harms miners\u2019 health , pollutes waterways, destroys forests and\u00a0cocoa farms, and fuels crime.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s risky but I just want to survive,\u201d said one of the men at the wildcat site visited by Reuters in the Prestea-Huni Valley district in western Ghana.\r\n\r\nThe 24-year-old accounting student, who asked not to be named because he was involved in illegal activities, said he had been skipping classes to prospect for gold because he needed the money, having lost his father as a teenager.\r\n\r\nThere was no professional protective equipment at the mine. Men wore flimsy plastic shopping bags on their heads. One had swimming goggles and another a rice bag covering his torso.\r\n\r\nThe unlicensed gold mining industry, known in Ghana as \u201cgalamsey\u201d, has grown at a breakneck pace this year as global gold prices\u00a0have risen by almost 30%, enticing new entrants.\r\n\r\nSmall-scale mines produced 1.2 million ounces of gold in the first seven months of this year, more than in the whole of 2023, according to data from Ghana\u2019s mining sector regulator.\r\n\r\nAbout 40% of Ghana\u2019s total gold output comes from small mines, as opposed to concessions operated by multi-national firms. Some 70-80% of the small mines are unlicensed.\r\n Poisoned profits \r\nMartin Ayisi, head of Ghana\u2019s Minerals Commission, the mining industry regulator, said most galamsey gold was smuggled out of the country and was therefore not contributing to national gold export revenues.\r\n\r\nFor Ayisi, the rise in gold prices is good for Ghana, helping it recover from a severe economic crisis in 2022 that required a $3-billion IMF bailout.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe should be able to get a lot of money and probably exit the IMF programme earlier,\u201d he said, forecasting national gold export revenues would more than double to $10 billion this year.\r\n\r\nBut industry experts say the lines between legal mining and galamsey are blurred, and gold from informal mines represents a larger proportion of revenues than the authorities acknowledge.\r\n\r\nThe dangers of galamsey, however, are not in dispute.\r\n\r\nDozens of miners have been killed in collapsing pits in recent years, according to news reports and human rights groups, while hospitals and health centres report high numbers of early deaths from pulmonary diseases of miners and residents of towns and villages near mines.\r\n \r\n \r\nThese are caused by inhaling dust that contains heavy metals such as lead, as well as poisonous fumes from the mercury and nitric acid the miners use to leach gold out of sediment.\r\n\r\nThe chemicals are then dumped on the ground or in rivers. Ghana\u2019s water authority says mercury and heavy metals from mining have contaminated about 65% of water sources.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, thousands of hectares (acres) of cocoa plantations and virgin forest have been destroyed by illegal miners, according to data from Global Forest Watch, an online monitoring platform.\r\n\r\nProtesters have taken to the streets in Accra in recent weeks to criticise President Nana Akufo-Addo\u2019s government over what they saw as its failure to tackle these problems. \u201cLeaders, you\u2019ve failed us!\u201d read some of the placards.\r\n\r\n\u201cGalamsey has to stop. We want to live long. We don\u2019t want to fall sick. We don\u2019t want to go to the hospital,\u201d said Aboubacar Sadekh, who was taking part in a march on Sept. 22, draped in a Ghanaian flag.\r\n\r\nThe government denies that it is failing to act on galamsey. When he came to power in 2017, Akufo-Addo pledged to take action on the issue, and during his time in office the government has launched crackdowns, deploying soldiers to arrest illegal miners. In some cases, mining equipment was seized and destroyed.\r\n Organised crime \r\nOpinion polls suggest galamsey is one of the top five issues for voters ahead of a Dec. 7 general election.\r\n\r\nThe main candidates to replace outgoing Akufo-Addo as president, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia and former President John Mahama, have pledged to formalise galamsey, for example by funding a state agency to explore for gold and map areas for locals to mine.\r\n\r\nBut successive governments have been promising for years to tackle the problem without making much headway, partly because powerful people are benefitting from the industry, experts say.\r\n\r\nChris Aston, head of a British-backed programme aimed at regulating small-scale gold mining in Ghana, said artisanal miners were vulnerable to organised crime gangs, who provide them with funding for equipment up-front, unlike other lenders.\r\n\r\n\u201cMiner pre-financing is one way that organised crime groups can penetrate the gold supply chain,\u201d he said. Funders then \u201crequire miners to sell the gold they mine back to them at a subsidised rate\u201d.\r\n\r\nEmmanuel Kwesi Anning, a security consultant based in Accra, said galamsey was fuelling an increase in gun-trafficking because those overseeing illegal mines sought armed protection against rivals or thieves.\r\n\r\nHe also said politicians and traditional rulers in some areas were taking a cut of galamsey profits, further entrenching the problem.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt has become an elite consensus that they\u2019ll not touch this business.\u201d\r\n\r\nGhana\u2019s information minister did not respond to requests for comments on the allegations of organised crime involvement, gun running and corruption.\r\n\r\nA top official in the National Security Ministry, who did not wish to be named because they were not authorised to speak about the issue in public, said authorities were working to address the links between illegal mining, money laundering and gun trafficking.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n "

"Ghana\u2019s Wildcat Gold Mining Booms, Poisoning People and Nature"

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