THE IMPACT OF MINING IN AGRICULTURAL LAND IN GHANA
There are various mining organizations in Ghana they are one of the largest gold producer in Africa and there are many other minerals that can be found in their country including diamond, manganese, nickel, phosphate, copper, chromium and uranium mining companies have also discovered more minerals in Ghana in 2010. This discovery boosted their country’s economic development through their rich natural minerals that this will provide sustainability and revenue generation, taxable income and employment generation of the countryside that they have projected at least 25,000 jobs in the next few years. During 2010 the government has also invited local and foreign investors to harness their land led by their minister for Lands and Natural Resources for mining control and development. And during the opening of Accra West and Central Africa Summit they have also focus on the various issues in mining including policy development and investment opportunities between sub-regions.
They need further policy and legislative review to improve the mining industry in Ghana because they believed that mining is one of the contributing industries that helps their government, the mining industry accounts for 5% GDP and it also contributes to 37% of their overall exports especially their gold mine. As of today there are more than 400 small and medium scales mining industry in Ghana. They can also say that the economy of Ghana relies heavily on cocoa and gold export, their secondary mining also includes natural gas, silver, salt and petroleum. In most environmental impact and problems that they may encounter the Ghanaian Environmental Protection Agency is the one who is responsible for environmental protection.
In Ghana concerned citizens, farmers and other organizations believed that mining has been the cause of environmental waste, degradation of land and deforestation that destroyed the land for crop production more so it is not the government and their people who benefited but usually foreign companies who owns more than 70% of mining companies from Britain, China, US, Europe, UK, Canada, Australia and other countries. Particularly their mining activity destroys arable land and forest resources that threaten the ecology of Ghana’s natural rainforest. Tarkwa has been a good source of woods and timber but during the start of mining industries in these areas 44% of their land was closed because of deforestation and only a few percent has been reserves. Mining also largely causes the drying of rivers and streams, animals are endangered because they have no place to live. Mining also reduced the natural extinction flora and fauna and worst natural crops has delimited even the plants, grass, mushroom, medicinal plants are no longer available because of the mining activities. (World Rainforest Movement bulletin Nº 41, December 2000)
One of the major contributing factors that destroys the land that causes devastating impact of mining is the process in mining according to the nearby residence of Tarkwa and Wassa West district planning officers that miners uses explosives that destroys land and mountains, threatens living things and destroys plants and trees because of the income opportunities. They have taken away farming and agriculture because most of their farmers have been migrating to the area hoping to get employment and minerals for their family but usually children resort in prostitution and use of drugs. The extraction of land and hills has also cause severe landslides and erosion that destroys logs and trees, while excavation and surface mining destroys vegetation and it was replace by rocks and liquids like mud and dirt coming from the innermost part of the land.
Most parts of Tarkwa has left lands uncultivated that impacts low production of food and other products while mining continues to destroy the land and the ecology. Currently more than 70% of the land in Tarkwa has been designed for mining activities, the livelihood in Atuabo and Dumasi in farming has been slowly been replaced by mining activities. The use of mining tools and machineries, drills, sink and shafts causes too much noise and air pollution it has also destroyed so much of the total land area and can no longer be suitable in agriculture that largely destroys agricultural livelihood of more than 315 farmers who use to cultivate the area. Experts believed that because of the combination of chemicals to agricultural land it can deteriorate the quality of the soil that trees and plants could hardly grow, the tailing dam replaced 6.3 hectares of land that yields 275,351 bags of cassava per annum. The dumping of waste also flows in water that also destroys its quality while the air has also cause so much pollution in incineration and burning of chemicals, additionally this resulted in health problems such as skin disease, malaria, tuberculosis, conjunctivitis and other disease.
References:
http://www.saprin.org/ghana/research/gha_mining.pdf
http://ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=196731 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_industry_of_Ghana http://www.mbendi.com/indy/ming/af/gh/p0005.htm
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