Artisanal Gold Mining and Surface Water Pollution in Ghana: Have the Foreign Invaders Come to Stay?

Abstract

Artisanal gold mining (ASM) is environmentally damaging and often has deleterious health effects for miners and surrounding communities. The absence of effective legal frameworks and secure rights for miners and communities in Ghana exacerbates this problem. From May 2009 to July 2012, we conducted interviews and focus group discussions with artisanal miners, government officials, policymakers, traditional leaders, and large-scale miners in order to examine the conflicts over access and land-use. The results show that a number of factors pose challenges to the willingness of artisanal to mine legally: the legal framework is incoherent; the human, financial, and material resources to enforce the laws (including decentralized structures) are almost non-existent; and, the political will to execute the laws (including control and sanctions on infractions) is limited. Although artisanal mining is reserved for indigenes, the Chinese, Indians, and Serbs have entered and consolidated their niches in the ASM sector. The metamorphosis of the Chinese and other foreigners from large-scale mining investors into artisanal miners is attributable to collusion with self-seeking citizens to circumvent the Minerals and Mining Act. Interestingly, there is ambivalence, which is expressed in citizen's complaints of environmental pollution against the Chinese. Also, three gaps in the legal framework account for the proliferation of foreigners in artisanal gold mining in Ghana: definition of who a mining investor is; lack of provision for mining rights for communities; and ambiguity of some provisions in the framework. The principal reason for policy failure in the ASM sector is that the current intervention mechanisms are predominantly of a technical order and do not take into account the complex socio-political realities in gold mining areas.

Shifting Discourses of Vilification and the Taming of Unruly Mining Landscapes in Ghana

“…Ghana's Minerals Commission allegedly sent licensed local operators to China to acquire enhanced expertise in building mining equipment; this strategy, however, backfired as it provided those sent with ample opportunity to seek out potential Chinese business partners, many of whom then kick-started their own mining activities on Ghanaian ground via various forms of service support, a legal act, and expanded from there . Armah et al (2013) draw attention to the peculiar ''metamorphosis" of medium-and large-scale Chinese and other foreign investors (e.g., Indians) into artisanal operators, enabled by complicit Ghanaian citizens who sold or transferred their mining license or partnered up with these foreigners, thereby circumventing the Minerals and Mining Act.…”

“…In ASM, such exclusion is most visible through the undifferentiated stereotyping of artisanal miners as social and environmental criminals enmeshed in spheres of illegality (e.g., Fisher, 2007;Hilson, 2013;Hilson & Potter, 2005;Tschakert & Singha, 2007). In Ghana, informal and unregistered artisanal and small-scale miners, known and branded as galamsey operators (Armah, Luginahh, Taabazuing, & Odoi, 2013), have been repeatedly accused of pilfering gold, disturbing and degrading landscapes without environmental rehabilitation, disrupting social life due to drug and alcohol usage and prostitutes, and contributing to the militarization and influx of fire arms into the mining sector. In public and policy discourses and in the media, an anti-galamsey rhetoric portrays these unregistered local miners typically as ''threat", ''menace", ''headache", and ''reckless environmental polluters", requiring a ''lasting solution" (Hilson, 2013;Tschakert, 2009).…”

Illicit Chinese Small-Scale Mining in Ghana: Beyond Institutional Weakness?

“…Second, some scholars have argued that there is a lack of political will to fight illegal Chinese businesses, ostensibly because politicians and high ranked government officials also benefit from such illicit activities [9,10]. Third, state and local actors (such as chiefs and landowners) with varying agencies connive with the Chinese miners, by "sheltering" the latter from statutory regulatory authorities in Ghana [11]. Ghanaians thus provide crucial local information such as how to navigate certain terrains and local laws.…”

South‐South Irregular Migration: The Impacts of China's Informal Gold Rush in Ghana

“…Environmental degradation has long been associated with small‐scale alluvial mining. This is particularly the case with galamsey activities, given their illicit nature which makes it difficult to affix accountability for damage caused (Armah et al., ; Tschakert, ). There have been particular concerns arising around the destruction of farmlands, the diversion of streams and rivers for mining purposes, as well as surface and ground water pollution through the usage of hazardous chemicals –particularly cyanide and mercury for processing gold (CSIR–Water Research Institute ), although more nuanced views have been offered by some academic researchers (for instance, Hilson et al., ; Tschakert and Singha, ; Nyame and Grant, : 82) .…”