Galamsey: Ghana’s illegal gold mining industry causes environmental destruction

For its part, WaterAid urged the government to take “immediate action to end the ecocide”, while the state water utility warned that Ghana risked becoming an importer of water by 2030 if the illegal mining was not curbed.

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

The illegal mining has also affected cocoa production, with the Ghana Cocoa Board saying in 2021 that more than 19,000 hectares of farmland had been destroyed in key cocoa-growing areas like the Western and Ashanti regions.

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

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

The illegal mining has also affected other crops, with a rice farmer in the Ahafo region telling the BBC that she could no longer use her nearby river for irrigation purposes.

“I have to set up a whole plant that involves digging deep to find water, which is very expensive,” she said.

The farmer, who asked not to be identified, said she feared that the crisis would continue if the powerful individuals behind the illegal mining were not arrested and prosecuted.

“When I see arrests by the military in poor communities, it’s just a symbolic gesture of appearing to maintain law and order. The people making big money out of it are in offices, not on the field,” she said.

The government did not respond to a BBC request for comment.