I’m here to give an insight into how forests and biodiversity have been severely impaired by multinational activities in the mining sector in Ghana. We all know that millions of poor people globally depend on forests and biodiversity for their livelihoods, food, water protection, and even for construction. Forests and biodiversity are key to life. These are the main targets of multinational companies, which regrettably, do not come from these host countries and communities. Even if they have caused any havoc, they do not belong to the people who their impacts have affected, who are going to live with those impacts in their families for the rest of their lives.

Ghana is very rich in resources, we are endowed in many resources: gold, diamond, oxide(?), you name it. Mining gold has been going on in Ghana long before even our colonization. The local people were doing it in a manner that you wouldn’t even know. The way they were going about it was in balance with the integrity of the environment. When commercial exploration of gold came on, their activities were carried on, underground. The companies drill deep into the ground and acitize the gold. So that, even the whole of Nairobi could be sitting on an exploration concession, but you wouldn’t notice it, so it has very little impact on forest and biodiversity. Unfortunately, investment liberalization, which was sparked by globalization all over the world, gave Ghana away to multinational corporations, to come in, settle and mine gold, this time not by the traditional underground mining method, but by surface mining. Surface mining requires that the whole vegetation be cleared, so if previously underground mining had been done under the whole of Nairobi, then this time, in the case of surface mining, the whole of vegetation of Narobi, including the people and settlements should be cleared. Not only to be cleared, but a place should be found for it for dumping all of the waste that is generated. So the impact is not only limited to the clearing, but other land that hosts forests and biodiversity will now become waste dumps. That is the underlying cause of forest destruction and biodiversity loss in Ghana as a result of multilateral activities in the mining sector. The investment liberalization process was led by Ama(?) and the World Bank. The economy of Ghana in the early eighties was in a recession. The model proposed by the World Bank to the country was to liberalize the natural resources sector, and gold was targeted. The national laws that were (?) the whole production of the country were changed. That is why surface mining has come to replace underground mining. Several thousand incentives were given to make foreign investment attractive. The resources were invested in the head of state.

This area is where we have the most rainfall and mountains, and so as a result, many freshwater bodies to be our resources are the centre. But these resources have had to be removed. Many areas have become sealed so that local people, who are moving across to their farms and other communities nearby don’t have access, let alone access to forest foods and products which they are dependant on in the past. TO add insult to injury, the multinational companies have lobbied the government. So that even our forest reserves have to be given away for surface mining. So you can imagine what investment liberalization activities and natural resources management or exploitation is causing poor and developing countries which are very rich in natural resources.

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The speeches from Regaining Control of the Commons: WSF 2007 are provided for information and educational purposes. The transcription has been undertaken on a volunteer basis. Due to resource limitations we are unable to provide a complete transcription. We apologise for the breaks in the text.

Disclaimer: The view in this and the other articles do not (neccessarily) represent the position or views of Friends of the Earth Australia nor Friends of the Earth International.