Mining, conflicts and livelihood struggles in a dysfunctional policy environment: the case of Wassa West District, Ghana

Taabazuing, Joseph; Luginaah, Isaac; Djietror, Godwin; Otiso, Kefa M.

doi:10.1080/19376812.2012.690089

Cited by 27 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…But also contestable will be an attempt to extrapolate insights from the work of Owusu (2011, 2012) to dismiss the growing concerns of local people about the gold Local Environment industry. Indeed, recent research by Taabazuing et al (2012), employing ethnographic methods, note that while there are some benefits arising from gold mining in Wassa, where the study was conducted, on a net basis, gold has done more harm. The study shows that gold mining has been carried out with little or no compensation, inadequate employment opportunities for locals, growing distrust between ordinary community members and mining companies and government officers.…”

Section: Local Environment 267mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…EPA, in particular, is poorly resourced and lacks the key instruments to put the plan into effect (Marful-Sau 2010, Taabazuing et al 2012). Also, the green movement has recurrently argued that "ecological modernism" -the ever increasing use of so-called modern equipment for environmental management -has not been proven 272…”

Section: Spillage Enclosures and Fishersmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This approach is neither supported by valuation principles nor any concepts in land economics (for a discussion of valuation methods related to compensation, see Ayitey et al 2011). In turn, mineralrelated compensation in Ghana is widely perceived to be low and unrealistic (Taabazuing et al 2012). Sometimes, the compensation is wrongly paid to chiefs -a procedure W.K.…”

Section: Farmlands Expropriation Compensationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Institutions such as The EPA, The Geological Survey Department, The Minerals and Mines Inspectorate, the Ghana Chamber of Mines, the Ministry of Mines and Energy, and the Minerals Commission are currently involved -in various ways -in the regulation of the extractive industry as a whole (see Taabazuing et al 2012 for a discussion of their respective roles), but institutions such as GNPC, the Ministry of Mines and Energy, and EPA have more direct responsibility over the sector.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Black gold in Ghana: crude days for fishers and farmers?

Obeng‐Odoom

2013

Local Environment

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The relationship between the exploration, production, and development of black gold, the local economy, and the local environment and how that, in turn, relates to the social and labour conditions of food and fish producers is relatively understudied. Orthodox economists typically use the notion of "resource curse" which, being a macroeconomic frame, does not provide for variegated, simultaneous, and complex processes of accumulation, contradictions, and displacement at the local level. This paper examines such processes in the Western Region of Ghana, an oil frontier in Africa. It uses multiple data sources such as surveys and analyses the evidence within Harvey's framework of "accumulation by dispossession". While there seem to be no clear evidence of massive pollution and hence dispossession of the populations living off the land and the sea in the oil "zone", there are tell tales about crude days ahead, related to enclosures and expropriation. Institutional strengthening may help to resolve the impending tensions, but such reform is incapable of addressing systemic problems of growing imbalance in the power relations among the players in the oil industry.

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Section: Local Environment 267mentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Spillage Enclosures and Fishersmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Farmlands Expropriation Compensationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Black gold in Ghana: crude days for fishers and farmers?

Obeng‐Odoom

2013

Local Environment

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“…In this context, most artisanal gold miners are from socially and economically marginalized communities, and turn to mining in order to escape extreme poverty, unemployment, and landlessness (Bush 2009;Hilson 2012;Taabazuing et al, 2012). According to Hentschel et al (2003), it is estimated that about 13 million people in about 30 countries are directly engaged in small-scale mining, a major proportion of who are women and children.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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

Armah¹,

Luginaah²,

Taabazuing³

et al. 2013

Environmental Justice

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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.

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Mining, the environment, and human rights in Ghana: An area of limited statehood perspective

2020

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Although the global norms meant to guide corporate environmental human rights conducts have steadily improved, there have been limited efforts directed at exploring whether business‐related environmental human rights infringements have as a result reduced. To address this gap, this paper examines the extent to which mining companies meet their responsibility to respect human rights and ensure that environmental rights of community members in mining areas are not violated. By privileging community voices, the paper offers nuanced insight into why gaps continue to persist between corporate commitment to human rights objectives and community experience in areas of limited statehood (ALS). We show that weak governmental capacity, neoliberal business model, and differences in sociocultural logics mediate between corporate environmental human rights commitments and their conduct on the ground. The paper concludes by considering the theoretical implications for business and human rights in ALS.

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Mining, conflicts and livelihood struggles in a dysfunctional policy environment: the case of Wassa West District, Ghana

Cited by 27 publications

References 23 publications

Black gold in Ghana: crude days for fishers and farmers?

Black gold in Ghana: crude days for fishers and farmers?

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

Mining, the environment, and human rights in Ghana: An area of limited statehood perspective

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