When Oliver Barker Vormawor saw reports in September that Ghana's water agency was unable to supply water to parts of the country due to severe pollution of major rivers from small-scale mining, he knew he had to do something.
Later that month, Vormawor and many other concerned Ghanaians took to the streets in Accra, protesting what they said was President Nana Akufo-Addo's inaction to prevent the “looming natural disaster”. They decided to put this issue before the election The December general election was highly contested. But instead of doing what they wanted, Vormawor and several of his friends were arrested and detained for several weeks on charges of holding illegal meetings.
Now, even though Akufo-Addo's New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been voted in, activists like Vormawor say they have little faith in the new president, John Mahama, and his ability to stop the pollution of rivers and soil in Ghana.
“There is no strategy from Mahama on how to deal with this situation,” Vormawor, who previously worked at the United Nations as an arbitrator, told Al Jazeera. “It is difficult to say that his government will be too harsh on this issue because even as an opposition party, they acted hastily and uncomfortably on this issue,” he added, referring to Mahama's National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Formerly known as the “Gold Coast”, the West African country is reeling from widespread, unrelenting small-scale mining of the shiny metal. Most of the craft activities fall under what the community calls “galamsey”, or “collecting and selling”. The term used to refer to illegal mining, often carried out by untrained boys and girls, but now covers small-scale licensed mining operations that are informally mined.
Officials say they were involved in galamsey
Galamsey has been operating for many years, but the gold prices that have risen worldwide (about $3,000 per gram) by the end of 2024 have led to an increase in illegal mining in Ghana, and in fact, to a great extent, destroying water bodies.
Small-scale miners use a lot of water to dig up dirt near rivers in forested areas and wash it to reveal the gold. They use toxic chemicals such as mercury and cyanide to separate the gold from the ore, and the chemicals end up in rivers that many people rely on for drinking and domestic use. Some people say they earn $70 to $100 a day.
As of 2017, more than 60 percent of the country's water supply was already contaminated with mercury and other heavy metals, which turn previously clean rivers brown, according to the Water Resources Commission. The chemical, which can damage the lungs, is destroying thousands of acres of farmland. The Cocoa Board of Ghana (COCOBOD) says it has lost 2 percent of its cocoa plantations to mining. Some farmers say that galamsey sellers buy their land or threaten to sell it.
“This is a problem that has been going on for decades now, but it is a growing problem and this has made Ghanaians aware that we are running out of time to protect our country and our people,” Ewurabena Yanyi-Akofur the head of the non-governmental organization WaterAid, told Al Jazeera.
“Although illegal gold mining was taking place mainly in the south of the country, our research has shown that it has spread everywhere in the north. “The presence of mercury and other toxins in water leads to skin diseases and other health problems,” he said.
In 2024 reportWaterAid warned that Ghana will have to import water from 2030 in commercial situations as drinking water is decreasing.
Militants are outraged by LI 2462, the Akufo-Addo-era law enacted in November 2022, which allows mining to be granted in the country's biodiversity hotspots, including protected forests. The previous policy limited mining in forests and protected areas to about 2 percent of their total area.
Many activists at the time criticized the law and cited the fact that the country lost 30,000 football stadiums worth of illegal logging, agriculture, and mining for gold and other minerals such as bauxite that year.
However, the government stuck to the law and continued to issue mining licenses – for exploration, industrial, and small-scale mining – at an unprecedented rate. While authorities issued about 90 licenses between 1988 and early 2017, another 2,000 were issued between September 2017 and January 2025, according to data from the Ghana Mining Repository. That period falls under the rule of Akufo-Addo. Most of the licenses were for small-scale mining, and large reserves such as Nkrabia Forest Reserve, west of Accra, and Boin Tano Reserve, located in the western region of the country, are among those granted.
Anger against the Akufo-Addo government grew when it was revealed that some of the companies granted new licenses under LI 2462 were top politicians and members of Akufo-Addo's NNP party and that some of these people were also running illegal mines.
People in Ghana are protesting against illegal gold mining, which has destroyed more than 60% of the country's water resources.
If illegal mining continues at present, experts say the entire country could be importing water by 2030. pic.twitter.com/EOIQB7Oh3w
– AJ+ (@ajplus) October 25, 2024
In April 2023, the explosive report of the former Minister of Environment Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng to Akufo-Addo was revealed to the public. In it, Frimpong-Boateng blamed “many party officials… their friends, supporters, supporters, relatives” for illegal mining. He challenged, among others, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, a prominent businessman and relative of Akufo-Addo, to interfere with the construction of mining companies that have destroyed forests.
“It was an open secret that they are using this as a way to raise money for the party, so that the officials can get their own corner,” Vormawor, an activist, told Al Jazeera. Workers like him say the proliferation of small-scale mining has attracted illegal mining, as the government has failed to set standards and ensure oversight.
The Akufo-Addo government denied the allegations in the Frimpong-Boateng report and described it as a list of “personal grievances” without evidence. In October 2024, the administration sent troops across the country's waterways to crack down on illegal miners under a special “Operation Halt”.
A new president, but little hope
However, the effects of galamsey are quite obvious. On January 2, Ghana's water agency closed another water treatment plant, this time west of Tarkwa-Nsuaem, due to the severe contamination of the Bonsa River, which supplies drinking water to more than 200,000 people in the area. This is the second time in five months that the administration has been forced to reduce attendance.
President Mahama, who was to swear for the second time on January 7, he promised to “reestablish” Ghana and tackle illegal mining.
Speaking to Voice of America a few days after his victory in the December election, Mahama said his government will prioritize the implementation of a ban on mining in forest reserves and areas near water. He also promised that his administration will work together with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the country to clean up the rivers polluted by flood water and heavy metals.
However, the president stopped short of promising to change the small licenses that have recently been approved, or to stop new licenses, saying that they provide ways to raise money.
“People must distinguish between small-scale mining and illegal mining: small-scale mining is legal,” said the president. “There are ways to do this without harming the environment in Canada, Australia, and the United States. The technology is there. So why … aren't we teaching people how to mine in an environmentally safe way? We are ready to consider those things.”
Mahama led the government for four years between 2012 and 2016. At that time, galamsey was already a topic, although his administration is known to have banned mining in forest reserves.
However, some have criticized the Mahama administration for failing to check the number of Chinese nationals who have come to Ghana to invest in small mining equipment such as excavators and who work alongside Ghanaians. In 2013, the Ghana Immigration Service deported more than 4,500 Chinese nationals after raids on illegal mining. Now, most illegal mining is done by Ghanaians.
Associate Vormawor said he did not expect much from Mahama's government because of the “weaknesses” of his leadership in his first term. The President, he said, should remove Akufo-Addo's controversial laws and several licenses and declare a state of emergency. Without this, Vormawor said, he will not stop protesting.
“Yes, there is small-scale mining and there is illegal mining, but most of it is irresponsible mining,” said the operator. “The work is not over yet because there is a problem that is coming, and we have to find a balance between people's livelihoods and the destruction of the environment.”