As a disclaimer, I write this as an outside observer; as a foreign student. For those who would like to read more, I would highly encourage you to read the research and articles produced by local Ghanaians.
As part of our research for our Masters of Science in Global Health, students conducted fieldwork abroad in a variety of countries, from Peru Malaysia, Tanzania, and of course Ghana. My initial reasoning for selecting Ghana as my country of choice related to the research topic presented: the impact of small-scale gold mining on health and communities.
As a 2nd generation Sierra Leonean, I am unfortunately aware of the impact that illicit mining can have on a country. The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991-2002), in addition to being caused by underlying political factors, was in part motivated by a desire to seize control of the diamond trade and resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 people, including some family members.
Overview of Galamsey
With that motivation, our team spent approximately a year and a half preparing and executing our research study and learning about the complexities of illegal gold mining in Ghana and its implications on health and society.
The form of illegal small-scale gold mining conducted in Ghana is referred to as ‘Galamsey’, which literally means ‘to gather and sell’. According to some estimates, illegal gold mining is responsible for a significant amount of the gold exported from Ghana, however, its impacts on health and the environment have made it a target of criticism and legal reprisals. The process involves the blasting dirt and soil, potentially polluting natural water sources, after the excavation of large pits which destroy large plots of arable land. Additionally, the gold extraction process, wherein individuals use toxic acid and mercury to attain the pure gold dust, places people and communities at elevated health risks as well as breath in these harmful fumes.
The Socioeconomic Drivers & Impacts
As part of the study, the research team conducted interviews with several galamsey workers, regarding their motivation for conducting galamsey even given its harmful effects, and the motivation was expected: poverty.
“If you go looking for a job it is all about money and there is no money now and when you go to the galamsey site you can earn GH¢ 30 ($5.18) or GH¢ 50 ($8.63)(a day) and the children will need food so that is what we do to feed our children.”
Galamseyer in Odaho
In the interviews we conducted with more than fifteen people, a lack of economic opportunity remained the central motivating factor for engaging in galamsey. But is this fact surprising? People living in areas with a lack of sustainable jobs, who still need to feed themselves and their families, cannot be expected to lay on their hands while valuable minerals are beneath their feet, especially when it is more profitable than other forms of work. Even in our relatively small sample, the average yearly income generated from galamsey was nearly twice as high as that obtained from other forms of work. There is thus a substantial motivation, whether in Ghana or any other country with plentiful resources, for the average individual to pursue their own form of resource extraction.
Given galamsey’s significant negative impact on the environment, a high degree of force was initially used on galamsey operators. Members of the police and army were often dispatched to galamsey sites to arrest the workers while cracking down on illegal immigrants involved in galamsey; while this was successful in reducing galamsey’s scope, there were reports of abuse of authority done by the enforcers. People, we interviewed frequently recounted stories of beatings, mass arrests of innocent young men, and even disparities between workers with connections and those without. The more candid interviewees even accused local government officials themselves of profiting off galamsey, and alerting their business partners to tip them off to potential raids.
The implications of this are wide-ranging, especially in countries where police forces wherein corruption is endemic. While this is of course an issue in many African countries, it is by no means exclusive to them. At the time of writing, for example, the U.S is currently being wracked by protests over their police forces murdering of unarmed African Americans. In order to ensure that individualized mining can be safely enforced, it is prudent for a government to apply laws fairly and equitably. It would be unjust to shut down one small-scale mining operation and arrest it, workers, while allowing the site manager and their connected employees to continue their own work due to bribery.
The issue of law enforcement must be counterbalanced with the fact that small-scale mining must be regulated at some level, lest it takes place near water sources of areas of growing food. During our work, we managed to interview one legal small-scale miner who described the long and expensive process of registering his mine:
Then you hire a surveyor to do a site plan and then take it to the Minerals Commission for a search, the district officer will come and inspect the land and check that it is okay and no one has a concession on the land and then you start the process and then the environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will also come to inspect the land and area to check whether the Minerals Commission’s report on the land is true and then if everything goes well then they forward your documents to Accra so it passes through a lot of process going through various Ministries…
…
I: How long does the process last until you acquire the license?
P: …it could last about 6 months before you get the license
And of course, every step of the process involves fees to conduct, rendering it unattainable for a significant number of people who must subsist on a few dollars every day, and more importantly, must feed their families NOW, not six months after the fact. For countries that want to encourage their own citizens to benefit from the wealth beneath them, streamlining the process and reducing its time and burden would be of great benefit. Not only would it allow governments to reap tax money from the process, but would ensure that such mining forms would only be done in designated areas, protecting communities and the environment from pollution.
Health & Safety
Waterborne Diseases
One of the primary barriers to conducting this kind of small-scale mining safely is the resulting health effects. At every stage of the ASGM process, individuals are at risk of injury, disease, and in the most extreme cases death; one example of this is the presence of “Burulian Ulcer”, a disease which starts as painless nodules before turning into large whitish-yellow ulcers, and its prevalence among small-scale miners. The disease is caused by the Myobacterium Ulcerans, and thrives in shallow water, where many of the workers spend several hours a day acquiring the gold-laden sediment, risking continual exposure, and when interviewing workers, they would often say that a friend or colleague of theirs had this sickness. If the disease progresses untreated, it can cause severe deformities, even in bone, further hampering one’s quality of life. Additionally, the workers may be at risk of other waterborne illnesses as well, such as Cholera, Typhoid fever, and others.
A common complaint from female miners is the possibility of developing Urinary Tract Infections(UTI’s) from standing in the water all day. Unlike legalized forms of mining, which tend to be male-dominated, illegal ASGM worldwide tends to have a higher proportion of women in the workforce, thus making health issues such as UTi’s more common, and posing serious health risks. Addressing these challenges not simply in terms of ASGM but other forms of mining will be necessary in order for it to be practiced safely and sustainably. Providing miners access to protective equipment, at least to prevent excess exposure to unclean water, would have to be part of any safe mining operation; however given the socioeconomic status of the miners who cannot afford such equipment, such material would have to be procured for them.
Respiratory Health & Coronavirus
The matter of respiratory health in mining is especially pertinent now, given the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the most highly recommended pieces of advice has been ‘social distancing’ preferably at least six feet apart. While the pandemic has been raging in Western Countries, especially in the U.S & Brazil which have recorded at least 100k and 50k deaths respectively at the time of writing, the African continent so far has been spared the worst of it, with approximately 250k cases. However, while African countries currently are spared from the worst impacts, that does not mean that they are invincible. Anecdotally, cases and unfortunately deaths within my family have occurred due to Covid, which have gone unrecorded by the government, and it is feasible that this is widespread, especially among poorer areas that may not have access to medical centers.
The qualities of Coronavirus, its high degree of transmissivity, and its targeting of the respiratory system have significant implications for ASGM and other small-scale miners. For one, the close proximity many of the workers operate puts them at elevated risk of both catching and transmitting the virus to their co-workers. Given the ‘small-scale’ many of them operate in, social distancing is difficult if not impossible; oftentimes two people are required to do the washing in close proximity and the pits are not large enough for people to work six-feet apart. On top of that, even countries as wealthy as the U.S report Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) shortages for their healthcare workers, and it would not be feasible to demand people in poorer countries purchase such materials.
Such a conundrum has not escaped groups such as the Human Rights Watch which has called for emergency action for those in artisanal and small-scale mining communities amidst the coronavirus pandemic. If viruses such as Corona are expected to be seasonal such as the Flu, then in order for it to be a safe long-term field for people and governments to benefit from, it is pertinent that the workers are provided the necessary equipment to practice safely. Providing such material in addition to protection from Corona would also have a secondary effect in shielding them from other harmful effects of mining as well. Wearing masks may protect workers from inhaling the harmful fumes produced during the amalgamation process, while gloves may prevent harmful bacteria or viruses from entering their body. There could be methods to ensure that those who work in ASGM remain protected and are able to work sustainably, which would require significant investments to yield a long-term impact.
While these are some of the thoughts and observations I came away with from my brief time visiting, I would encourage all who read this to engage themselves further on the topic. I hope the sources provided below, can give readers a more holistic view of galamsey in Ghana, and come apply the lessons there to other countries, whose natural resources are not yet utilized by the people.
Levin, E. (2013, November 21). Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/extractiveindustries/brief/artisanal-and-small-scale-mining
Origiliasso, C. (2014) An estimation of the artisanal small-scale production of gold in the world. Science of The Total Environment. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/11501270/An_estimation_of_the_artisanal_small-scale_production_of_gold_in_the_world
Basu, N., Renne, E., & Long, R. (2015). An Integrated Assessment Approach to Address Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Ghana. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12(9), 11683–11698. doi: 10.3390/ijerph120911683
Tetteh K. An Overview of Ghana’s Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) Sector. Minerals Commission of Ghana; Greater Accra, Ghana: 2010.
Teschner, B. A. (2012). Small-scale mining in Ghana: The government and the galamsey. Resources Policy, 37(3), 308–314. doi: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2012.02.001
MINISTRY OF LANDS AND NATURAL RESOURCES (MLNR), PROJECT APPRAISAL & IMPLEMENTATION DOCUMENT FOR THE MULTILATERAL MINING INTEGRATED PROJECT (MMIP) (2017). Retrieved from http://citifmonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/1_MMIP-MANUAL-OUTLINE_2017-06-26-final-2draft.pdf
Emergency Action Needed for Vulnerable Artisanal & Small-Scale Mining Communities & Supply Chains. (2020, June 22). Retrieved June 22, 2020, from https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/13/emergency-action-needed-vulnerable-artisanal-small-scale-mining-communities-supply