Making a living from destroying the environment

However, a look at the water reflects a totally different reality; a palpability that begs many rhetorical questions. In this part of the country, farming and sand quarrying are the two main occupations of residents, with the older folks involved in the former while majority of the youth prefer the latter.

Unfortunately, though, these sand winning activities are perpetrated in and around the Nawuni river. As a result, the surface of the water is now filled with silt and filth, with the previously clear water also turning brown.

Current state of Nawuni river in Northern Ghana Pulse Ghana

More worrying is the fact that the years of uncontrolled sand winning has led to the destruction of farmlands and the ecosystem along the river banks. A 2013 report by the Ghana Developing Communities Association (GDCA), indicated that 190 hectares of land have been destroyed in the Northern region due to sand winning activities.

The GDCA research further disclosed that the practice has so far affected over 177 families, with the number having further increased in the last five years.

In 2018, the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) also threatened to shut down its treatment plants in the region due to severe pollution of the Nawuni river. Such a drastic action by the GWCL would definitely lead to shortage of water in the region, but who cares?

Sand winning in rivers is unauthorised and illegal under Ghana’s laws.

But despite such an activity being illegal, it has been difficult to curb because it is also the source of livelihood for some Ghanaians. Simply put, in the community of Nawuni, some people make a living by destroying the environment (their water bodies in this regard).

As intriguing and worrying as this sounds, that is the reality in most communities around the country. Ghana is blessed with so many natural resources yet, with each passing day, the reckless actions of some citizens lay these resources to waste.

Ghana’s Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, acknowledges the adverse effects that such practices pose on the natural environment, but struggles to understand why people would deliberately trade the future of society for present gains.

“Sand winning can be even worse than 'galamsey' (illegal mining) because they can degrade a large portion of land in short time because it goes very fast…. It affects the farming activities when they grow the maize, pepper and [crops]. And this is very popular in the area, which does not bode well,” Prof. Boateng lamented some months back.

The sorry state of the Nawuni river is just a fraction of the incessant pollution of rivers in Ghana. Other rivers in the Western, Central, Eastern and Ashanti regions are equally being polluted through illegal mining activities, locally referred to as “galamsey”.

Illegal mining activities in some parts of Ghana Pulse Ghana

For any climate-conscious country, destroying the environment should be the last thing on the minds of citizens, but in Ghana – where there is high cost of living and high unemployment levels – people are not bothered at all, once these activities get to fill their pockets with money.

Today, rivers such as the Brim, Densu, Ayensu, Pra, Tano, Offin, Oti and many others which serve as sources of water for indigenes are nothing to write home about due to the mercenary-like actions of some locals.

In 2017, the Government of Ghana waged a national war on illegal mining activities by placing a ban on such practices across the country.

The River Pra, before and now Pulse Ghana

But, rather than stop, these illegal miners threatened to vote against the government if it continues to deny them what they term as their “livelihood’.

“We all know that it is not good, but if the government helped us to do it in a better way, that will be better than saying it should be banned,” one small-scale miner said in an interview with Accra-based Joy FM.

“They think they are in power today so they can take our food from our mouth. We are making plans for 2020 and no miner will vote for them. I will not vote for them and my family will not for them either.”

Unfortunately, though, the Government has since relaxed on its stance following reported pressure from chiefs, opinion leaders and other influential persons in society.

And while the ban on illegal mining has not been lifted, there is ample evidence to show that illegal mining activities are still taking place in some parts of the country.

Some small scale miners busily eroding the soil to extract gold Pulse Ghana

Meanwhile, the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has warned that the country risks facing a water crisis if the galamsey operations are not brought to an immediate halt.

“If we do not stop galamsey (illegal mining) which is destroying the water bodies, then we face an imminent water crisis,” Communications Manager of the GWCL, Stanley Martey, warned two years ago.

“We don’t have to stop the fight against galamsey, we can’t use a year to fight it, it has to be continuous until we eradicate it entirely. Other than that we are going to face serious challenges,” he added.

Whiles the challenge with Ghana’s rivers and other water bodies is huge, the forests and lands of the country are also in equally perilous situations.

In some parts of the Greater Accra region, for instance, several lands have been degraded and eroded as a result of illegal sand winning activities.

Sand winning degrading lands in Nsakina in the Greater Accra region Pulse Ghana

In communities like Nsakina, Amasaman, Ablekuma and Agape, the lands have been left in deplorable states due to the haphazard and unplanned nature of such activities.

“Look at the place, it’s in a mess. Not a single week passes without a tractor coming to collect sand from this area,” a resident of Nsakina, who gave his name as David, told Pulse Ghana.

"It’s not as if we haven’t complained. The thing is that some opinion leaders in the community are in bed with those destroying the lands. They are only interested in digging up the sand."

“Just look at how the land has eaten up. As it stands, all the roads have now turned into water ways because the surface has been exposed to erosion and when it rains then it becomes like a gutter for the rain water to pass through,” he added.

Francis Baiden Amissah , a senior Inspector of Mines at the regional directorate of the Mines Commission, attributes the incessant illegal sand winning activities in the country to weak systems that fail to ensure that only licensed companies are permitted to operate.

According to him, since he moved to the Ashanti region in 2015, his office can testify to just one company being duly licensed to operate in the region.

“Before you start this sand winning, you need to conduct pre-licensing and we will recommend to Accra whether you are supposed to be given the licensing or not, but ever since I came here some three years ago, the pre-licensing for sand winning has been done only once and that is where I became alarmed,” Mr. Baiden Amisah disclosed in January 2018.

Such loose systems, coupled with the fact that the Government of Ghana has agreed to mortgage the Bauxite deposit at the Atiwa Forest – one of two such forests remaining in Ghana – to China for $15 million, typifies a nation that has no regard whatsoever for preserving climate.

Atiwa forest reserve Pulse Ghana

As government continues to prioritise money over the safe-keeping of the environment, citizens are equally, rather heartbreakingly, focused on today’s gains than the consequences their actions could pose in the future.

But rather than put a stop to their land-degrading actions, the Sand Winning and Stone Quarry Association in the Ashanti region rather blames the hectic process required to get a licence as the reason why most of their members do things their own way.

Chairman of the Association, Peter K. Donkor, says although members want to do the right thing, the bureaucracies involved in acquiring a licence puts many of them off.

"You will have to make the side plans, send it to the minerals commission; it will be sent back to the district, to the EPA; stool lands and the rest to make their inspections. They will have to make publications for 21 days," Mr. Donkor explains the tiresome process it takes to get a licence from the Minerals Commission.

“If none of these three agencies find nothing wrong with the land, they give you a letter to send to the minerals commission in Accra and there you have to start yet another processing and how many of us will get the time to do all these things?”

The Sustainable Development Goals 6, 11 and 13 zooms in on clean water and sanitation, sustainable cities and communities, and climate action, respectively.

However, the tendency of some Ghanaians to make a living out of destroying the environment has contributed to causing inconsistent atmospheric conditions and raining patterns.

Add that to the fact that people living along the Pra, Densu, Ayensu, Offin and Nawuni rivers continue to suffer high rates of waterborne diseases like cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery and guinea worm diseases, and the consequences of polluting the environment are clear.

As it stands, though, illegalities, which destroy the environment, have become livelihoods, and unless drastic measures are put in place, the threats to climate change will not be mitigated anytime soon.

So how about rather making a living by saving nature?