Activists in Ghana lead fight against China-backed bauxite mine in pristine rainforest
- China has promised Ghana billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure projects in exchange for access to mine bauxite
- Ghana has the world’s fastest deforestation rate – and mining is a major factor
On a warm morning at the end of the rainy season, Vida Dede, a cocoa farmer, tossed the burnt remains of a plantain stem on a pile in Ghana’s Atewa Range Forest Reserve.
It sits on a hilly trek through a dense grove just past the rural town of Sagyimase, a two hours’ drive north of the capital, Accra.
The charcoaled ground beneath Dede’s feet was the result of controlled fires by farmers to clear old growth for new crops. But the pristine landscape had been equally pockmarked by illegal gold miners.
“They don’t ask permission from anybody before they fell your trees,” Dede said.
Ghana has the world’s fastest deforestation rate and mining is a major factor, according to the World Resources Institute. The activities poison farmland and drinking water sources with toxic chemicals including mercury, lead and cyanide.
Still, farmers can gain more lucrative work on mines operating without permit. It takes three weeks for Dede and her husband John to weed and burn a quarter of a hectare of land for farming, while in a day she said she can make 200 Ghanaian cedi (US$36) working at an illegal gold mine.
