Your password will be sent to this address. Embed Video Popup Video Instagram. Download Buy Photos. The regulations set out the levels of local content pertaining to the use of Ghanaian human and material resources, services and businesses, as well as the percentage of local equity ownership for the mining industry.
The regulations apply to applicants or holders of reconnaissance licences, prospecting licences or mining leases; applicants or holders of a licence to export or deal in minerals; as well as to persons who provide mine support services.
ENSafrica Ghana senior associate Ekua Newman notes there are an estimated million tons of bauxite in the Atewa forest. Ghana is, therefore, eager to focus much attention on exploiting its bauxite reserves, she adds. These projects are being rolled out in phases.
Environmental interest groups have raised legiimate concerns over the potential impact that the projects will have on the ecosystem of the Atewa forest, in south-eastern Ghana, which forms part of the upper Guinean rainforest. However, she explains that, following the havoc caused by illegal small-scale mining on Ghanaian forests and water bodies, there is increased awareness of the destructive effects of indiscriminate mining.
Therefore, a conscious effort is being made by government and the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that recent mining activities are completed in accordance with international best practice.
All necessary approvals and permits required from the Forestry Commission and the Water Resources Commission for the protection of natural resources, water bodies, public health and the environment would be obtained, she adds. GIADEC is involved in investor engagement processes with more than 40 companies — Ghanaian and international — interested in bidding to develop various aspects of the aluminium value chain. The process is ongoing, and many bauxite mining licences were expected to be awarded towards the end of , says Newman.
The President of Ghana in his State of the Nation address delivered to Parliament on March 9, noted that GIADEC is in the final stage of engagement with investors and the selected strategic partners will be announced imminently. In partnership with selected private investors, GIADEC intends to develop up to four mining concessions — one in Awaso, two in Nyinahin and one in Kyebi — and establish up to three new refineries, each with a combined capacity of about two-million tonnes of alumina.
Mining Weekly is a product of Creamer Media. ARG, therefore, organized a trip for stakeholders around the Atewa landscape to Awaso in beginning of March The idea of this trip was to demonstrate the impacts and environmental risks that open-cast bauxite mining poses. In addition, they visited the village Awaso and demonstrated that the people there do not have a better living situation or more income due to the nearby mine.
A former assembly member and opinion leader explained in an interview, that at first, he supported the mining because he hoped jobs would be created. Some of the people who participated in this tour also filmed and took pictures, which are now presented in their communities.
Also, the trip has been key in the formation of the Concerned citizens of Atewa Landscape. The group includes local farmers, youth, women and interfaith groups as well as local opinion leaders. The general idea of this trip was to educate the people about the impacts of mining. In addition, ARG aimed to talk to the chiefs around the Atewa forest.
The position and role of Chiefs in Ghana was further strengthened in the Constitution of the Fourth Republic, acting as powerful leaders of a community. The main functions of chiefs include dispute settlement; codification of customary law; organization of rituals, ceremonies and festivals; custody of stool land; organization of communal labour; and promotion of socioeconomic development.
To educate and convince chiefs about sustainable development, as also done in the aforementioned trip to Awaso, is therefore an important aspect of the campaign to protect the Atewa Forest.
In addition, ARG demonstrated their constant watch over the government and exploited a further strategy to rise public awareness in regards to conservation of the Atewa Forest by placing large billboards at strategic locations.
While some billboards are located around the forest area in smaller villages, one billboard is placed on the opposite side of the Jubilee House, the presidential palace see Fig. The billboard is not only placed at a major and highly frequented road in Accra for everyone to see, but also as a statement and symbol of this conflict. In this process, actors form temporary coalitions to achieve a common goal. However, these actors can act at different scales.
Terlouw argues that upscaling the conflict arena enables some groups to use their links with powerful groups or individuals to improve their position locally or even on a broader scale. Hogenstijn et al. The latter, is about trying to refer the conflict to a higher spatial scale, where the weak group can achieve a stronger position on the power balance. In contrast, upscaling the figuration means that groups use their links with powerful groups or individuals at higher spatial scales to advance their position locally.
Especially because these actors worked together on the prescribed study in These state officials received a guided tour and were further educated about the importance of protecting the forest by ARG Leading Ghanaian musicians MzVee, Obour, and Sherifa Gunu visit the Netherlands in August to mobilize with the Ghanaian community to join their plea for the protection of the Atewa Range forest reserve in Ghana.
The Ghanaian community in the Netherlands wrote a letter to the president proposing to upgrade Atewa Range Forest into a National Park. International awareness about the Atewa Forest was raised when the famous biologist Edward O.
The letter was part of a petition led by ARG, but also intended as a critical review of the president. However, more recognized on social media received the tweet from the actor Leonardo Di Caprio in November , who linked an article of the Washington Post about Atewa and called for its protection. In addition, several other international media platforms reported about the conservation efforts of the Atewa Forest including the mentioned article from the Washington Post , Quartz Asiedu ; Oteng-Yeboah and Foreign Policy Gbadamosi While the conflict did receive more international attention in this time frame, the upscale process was limited on rising awareness rather than upscaling the conflict itself.
The aim is to send a resolution backed by the IUCN to the Ghanaian government to urge them to exclude Atewa as a site for bauxite mining. In January , ARG handed a day moratorium to the government, requesting a statement on the further actions in Atewa Forest.
However, ARG received no answer and therefore sued the government for entering the forest in May and drilling deep holes causing damage to the Forest. In the beginning of , a youth march around Atewa forest against bauxite mining gained public attention. After the march, several chiefs allied and published a statement against this protest.
The two major arguments of this statement are that 1 the forest is already under threats like illegal logging and mining and therefore it is difficult to set up a national park and 2 they dispute, that the NGOs speak for the people around the forest. This opens a new conflict line, between some chiefs of the effected communities trying to delegitimize the protests, the government and the environmental NGOs.
He is also the head of the Akyem Abuakwa traditional council, which at first was sceptic about the mining. However, in their meeting the Okyenhene stressed the need for sustainable mining practices that will ensure the full protection of the environment, but praised the new government for their plans to develop an integrated aluminium industry Nyabor The important actors, divided in key actors, primary actors and secondary actors are put together in a so-called actors map.
It sums up the participating actors, their position to each other and enables to identify the conflict lines. However, this mapping only gives an overview over the current status spring and leaves out further development. Actors may drop out or appear as well as relations between the actors could change in the future. As argued, Fig. As explained ARG or other actors address the president directly, but he remains silent and does not speak in this conflict.
While he does speak about the future of bauxite mining and the industrialization along with this process, but avoiding discussions about ecological concerns.
The relations between the chiefs and governmental actors remain unclear. However, according to an interview with members of the ARG office in Keybi, the few chiefs are bribed and speaks of elite capturing, which remains an unsettled allegation. It is important to mention, that Keybi, the biggest settlement around the forest, is also the hometown of the President Akufo-Addo. But, at the same time, we are fighting him. However, it should be pointed out that there might be at least in part some informal relationships between those actors and overlapping interests.
While some strategies have been more successful than others have, demonstration understood as showing films and taking the local actors to the bauxite mine in Awaso was often described as a successful example. This created greater support for the local population and convinced some political mandate holders from the region about the risks of bauxite mining.
As mentioned, an Opinion Leader interviewed changed his mind about bauxite mining after the bus tour to the Awaso mine.
Compared to other social movements in the context of mining projects, the NGOs involved in the Atewa Forest conservation formed an Alliance before the current Deal with China was signed. In addition, the movement was in the beginning backed by the government aiming for protecting the forest and turned after the elections into a movement against the new government.
The government of Ghana is silent in the discussion not giving any public statement; however, in one statement by the current president, he declares the concern the NGOs raise, as something technically manageable. Mostly the transformation from a rock into ore is seen as something economical logical to do, because the ore is being translated into benefits for society. However, mining can result in unwanted consequences and these are quite difficult to anticipate or control.
Therefore, certain actors produce the idea that extraction is something mostly beneficially. While the new government views the forest as a resource for bauxite, which is symbolized with jobs and industrialization, the environmentalists view the forest as providing essential ecosystem services including unique biodiversity hotspots and clean water. In addition, an illegal hunter would see the forest as source for food and resource to sustain his livelihood.
The presented case, framed as a conservation-extraction conflict, is characterized by differences in the idea about nature. Hiding the political is also a strategy; however, the NGOs try to pull the new government back into the conflict arena, to avoid that the exploitation may appear as logical and without an alternative to the population.
While these strategies where not directly formulated by the NGOs, they all serve the goal of keeping the protest going, gaining more attention and therefore leading to the situation, that the government has to engage with the NGOs because it can no longer ignore or overhear the protest. The paper also elaborated on who the actors are. If the used strategies to protect the forest will be eventually successful is uncertain.
The year marks an election year in Ghana and as ARG pointed out that provides a big chance to put pressure on the current president. Due to these many factors, Atewa Forest will remain a contested territory being constantly renegotiated. Political Ecology is an important approach to deconstruct conflict strategies and drawing attention to the processes of politicization, and how nature is constantly negotiated.
In addition, Bridge calls for a critical engagement with the investment process, from exploration, through development, production and closure. While the conflict between local NGOs and the Ghanaian Government is only one side of the conflict, it remains unclear how direct the involvement of China is in this conflict.
Interests between the Governments of China and Ghana may be similar, but in certain aspects could also be contrary. While the idea of bauxite mining in Ghana is nothing new, more an unfulfilled dream, the politicization of Atewa Forest is closely connected to the involvement of China in this conflict. This is because it is the Chinese financial support that may appear as the trigger of this conflict. Further research should therefor also consider not only the conflicts between civil groups and governments, but also what intentions and strategies are competing between a government that hosts natural resources and the Chinese government.
Especially against the background of the so-called new scramble for Africa and growing interests of China to secure access to African resources, it will be important to address issues like power relations and how these will have impacts on the local level. A Rocha was founded in Portugal in ; the headquarter is now in London and the organization has branches in about 21 countries.
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Forest vegetation in Ghana. Geobotany 1. More than 2, people are forced to rely instead on a borehole. Beneath the lush forest that envelops the town lie what local officials estimate is million tons of bauxite, a valuable mineral used to produce aluminum products from teaspoons to fighter jets.
A billboard campaigns against the mining operation in Atewa in the market of Kwabeng, a small village on the outskirts of the forest, on Sept. The Chinese firm Sinohydro will build the infrastructure on these sites, and Ghana will pay back the costs with proceeds from its sales of refined bauxite. Despite mounting concern among locals and environmentalists, road construction has already begun.
As development continues, work in two areas in particular is proving controversial: Atewa, a mountainous stretch of the rainforest that, as the source of three rivers, provides drinking water to 5 million people, and the Tano-Offin Forest Reserve, which stretches 41, hectares along the hills of Nyinahin.
Kyekyewere is the largest of around half a dozen farming communities inside this forest, which has lost more than 16 percent of old-growth plant life since For its part, the government says that mining will not harm the environment. According to Ruhweza, the vast majority of the Upper Guinean Forest was cleared over the last century. Endemic species are now reliant on small fragments of remaining forest for their habitats.
The consequences of deforestation are grim. Around 34 percent of workers in Ghana are in agriculture. But those farmers have experienced drought and soaring temperatures hitting 43 degrees Celsius Fahrenheit , which researchers have linked to climate change from deforestation, because trees in tropical forests release water and regulate air temperature.
Daniel Kwamena Ewur explains the negative effects of gold mining activities to a farmer, Afia Nyame, on her cocoa field on Sept. Ewur is the collaborative resource management officer for A Rocha, an international network of Christian environmental organizations, that is raising awareness about the Atewa mining project among the local population. He said longer, drier seasons were impacting his farm and causing cocao trees to die. Pollution in parts of another major river, the Pra of which Offin River is a tributary , has been blamed on mines.
Reports suggest it was probably caused by illegal mining upstream. Legal mines are not without problems, either. And those whose land has been used have seen little in return for their sacrifices. Under Ghanaian law, at least 10 percent of mining royalties should be handed from the central government to local authorities within mining areas. And local authorities may misuse the funds rather than spending them on development. At the time he took office, he stabilized debt levels at around 57 percent of GDP and brought inflation down to 9 percent in from almost But new loans related to bauxite extraction could reverse those gains.
According to some loan agreements, Ghana is required to set up an offshore escrow account for revenue generated from selling bauxite. China has similar deals with other nations on the continent. Beyond the huge debt, the investment has led to some gains. Chinese lending has provided telecommunication networks, highways, water supply expansion, and schools within Accra.
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