ACCRA, Ghana — Illegal small-scale gold mining in Ghana has been linked with the destruction of the environment and illness. However, for some individuals, the practice known locally as galamsey provides livelihoods and an informal boost to the West African nation’s economy.
With a general election approaching in December, galamsey is proving to be a hot-button issue for the nation’s lawmakers — including President Nana Akufo-Addo — in the face of widespread demonstrations across the country calling for a crackdown on the practice.
In the nation’s capital, Accra, earlier this month, hundreds took to the streets for three days of protests, some carrying signs saying, “Greed is killing Ghana,” and, “Gold for the few, destruction for the many.”
Many carried bottles containing murky, brown water, a reference to the polluting of rivers and waterways in the country. Mercury and heavy metals in the have contaminated over 60% of the country’s water sources, according to Ghana’s Water Resources Commission.
“If you can drink it, you will stop this protest,” one of the protesters says in a video posted on social media by the activist group #StopGalamsey.
Environmental Impact
Legal commercial mines, many of which are operated by multinational firms, often have heavy machinery to dig deep in one concentrated area. But for galamsey, due to its low-budget nature, illegal miners will dig shallow holes across a greater surface area, often near bodies of water. When these holes are not filled back in, the quality of previously arable land diminishes.
The miners will also mix harmful substances like mercury with water to extract the gold they find. This water then leeches into the water supply, tainting sources of water for entire communities.
In August, Ghana Water Ltd., the country’s main water supplier, said it would not be able to provide water to residents of the city Cape Coast and its major surrounding areas because galamsey miners had polluted the nearby Pra River to such a degree that its water could not be treated properly.
Social and Economic Ramifications
After Akufo-Addo took power in 2017, the report said, “the state has pursued high-cost interventions such as deploying soldiers in various missions to arrest illegal miners.” It added that in “some instances, mining equipment like excavators were seized and burned.”
But the threat of high sentences and hefty fines has done little to stop illegal miners from destroying thousands of acres of cocoa plantations and virgin forest, according to data from the online monitoring platform Global Forest Watch.
Yaw Amoafo, who owns several small gold mines employing 20 to 30 people each, said public anger at galamsey mining has forced him to cease operations. He added that he feared the government would introduce a short-term ban on small-scale mining, like the one it implemented in 2017.
The Gold Industry and Global Trade
As a result, a large amount of this gold goes undeclared and billions of dollars’ worth of the precious metal is smuggled out of Africa each year, according to a 2022 report by Swissaid, a nongovernmental organization based in Switzerland that supports projects in the developing world.
“Twelve African countries are involved in smuggling more than 20 tons of gold a year. Most gold smuggling in Africa takes place in Mali, Ghana and Zimbabwe,” it said.
Consequently, the State Department cautioned in an advisory last year, “the use of gold as currency, the cash-intensive nature of elements of the gold trade, and gold’s portability and lack of traceability — particularly from mining to refining — makes it an attractive vehicle by which criminal organizations, armed groups, terrorist organizations, and others seek to move illicit gains, purchase weapons, evade sanctions.”
To combat these issues, Ghana opened the government-backed Royal Ghana Gold Refinery earlier this year with the aim of getting it accredited by the LBMA to build its reserves and ensure global standards are met.
