essay on illegal mining

United Nations

Office on drugs and crime, illegal mining and trafficking in precious metals, the problem.

Illegal mining and trafficking in precious metals negatively impact peace, stability, security, development, governance, the rule of law, the environment and the economy. Furthermore, illegal mining of precious metals is often accompanied by serious human rights abuses and it can have severe environmental impacts, including through deforestation, land degradation and pollution. Illegal mining and trafficking of precious metals are often linked to economic crimes such as tax evasion, fraud, and corruption, by exploiting loopholes in regulatory frameworks. Due to the high profits associated with precious metals, and the often-low risks of being arrested or prosecuted, organized criminal groups are exploiting this sector.

International Recognition

In 2019, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted the Resolution 2019/23 titled Combating transnational organized crime and its links to illicit trafficking in precious metals and illegal mining, including by enhancing the security of supply chains of precious metals on the recommendation of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (E/2019/30). The resolution raised concerns about the growing involvement of organized criminal groups in illicit trafficking in precious metals and the substantial increase in the volume and range of transnational criminal offences associated with the trafficking of precious metals and illegal mining. It calls on States to increase cooperation, including by working with UNODC and other international organizations, to strengthen law enforcement and prosecutorial support, and make better use of data and technology. It strongly encourages States to make use of the provisions of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).

Our Approach

UNODC recognizes the need to enhance international cooperation, technical assistance and capacity building to address illegal mining and trafficking in precious metals and developed a response framework on illegal mining and the trafficking in precious metals. The Environment Team coordinates the UNODC response to these crimes, and works through the newly-created Inter-Divisional Task Team on Minerals Trafficking to leverage all available expertise across UNODC to offer a coherent technical assistance programme to support Member States. Furthermore, in partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Customs Organization, the Environment Team co-hosts the Informal Law Enforcement Network meetings on Minerals Related Crimes. The Environment Team is currently developing a Diagnostic Toolkit to aid in assessing Member States’ challenges and needs with regards to illegal mining and trafficking in precious metals. The Diagnostic Toolkit is aimed at conducting rapid assessments of vulnerabilities along the gold supply chain and will be finalized in 2022.

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The harms and crimes of mining.

Yuliya Zabyelina Yuliya Zabyelina Department of Political Science, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.766
Published online: 22 November 2023

The world characterized by scarcity of natural resources and the growing demand for metals and minerals has provided strong incentives for illegal mining. Mining-related crimes have become a desirable illegal business for organized criminal groups, rebel forces, terrorist organizations, and private mining companies due to the low risks involved and the frequently limited ability or willingness of authorities to monitor mining areas and supply chains of metals and minerals. Illegal mining has devastated and displaced communities, contaminated clean water sources, and ravaged ecosystems and biodiversity. The problem commands both individual responses from the countries directly impacted by illegal mining as well as responses from the entire international community.

illegal mining
artisanal and small-scale mining
trafficking in metals and minerals
trafficking in persons
money laundering

Introduction

Illegal mining creates serious problems that countries with mineral exploitation face, including armed violence, human rights abuses, environmental destruction, corruption, and money laundering, to name a few. The high profits associated with illegal mining make the industry attractive to offenders ranging from small-scale miners to organized criminal groups, rebel formations, and terrorist organizations to corporations ( Zabyelina & van Uhm, 2020 ). Illegal mining endangers the environment and indigenous communities, stripping lands of their resources and people inhabiting those lands of forests, water, and soil quality, leaving behind barren landscapes and impoverished communities. Illegal mining feeds off abusive labor practices and facilitates sexual exploitation in the form of trafficking in persons. Unethical and outright criminal conduct of private companies exacerbates the problem and its negative consequences. This article provides an overview of illegal mining with a specific focus on the broad spectrum of crimes and harms associated with it.

The Basics of Mining

Resources that cannot be produced artificially in a lab or factory or grown through agricultural production are obtained through mining. Mining is the process of extracting economically valuable and nonrenewable geological matter from the Earth’s crust to benefit society ( Bell & Donnelly, 2006 ). Coal, iron, bauxite, phosphate rock, and gypsum are some of the most widely mined minerals ( Casey, 2018 ). Due to its long-term store of value and role as an inflation hedge, gold remains a popular precious metal in the mining industry. The global demand for gold soared in 2022 , setting an 11-year record, due to unprecedented central bank purchases ( World Gold Council, 2023 ). The variety of uses for gold outside the financial and investment sector, such as in technology industries and electronics manufacturing, has brought the global gold market to prominence and stimulated growing supply from around the world ( McDonald, 2019 ). Despite sustainability-oriented advancements in gold mining techniques over the past decades and new laws adopted by many countries to mitigate the negative effects of illegal gold mining, the illegal extraction and trafficking in gold continues to devastate the environment and communities around the world.

The demand for minerals used in the transition to green energy has been forecasted to increase ( Hund et al., 2020 ). According to the International Energy Agency, “[a] typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant” ( International Energy Agency, 2022 , p. 5). Depending on the technology, different mineral resources are used, but about half of the demand for green energy is for energy storage batteries for electric vehicles (EV) ( Hund et al., 2020 ). The performance of EV batteries, along with their longevity and energy density, is contingent on lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite ( Hund et al., 2020 ). Some estimates suggest the supply for these “green minerals” will ramp up by 500% by 2050 to meet the demand of the low-carbon energy future ( Hunter & Ofosu-Peasah, 2022 ). To ensure that the clean energy transition is pursued in a fair and equitable manner, governments around the world will have to ensure these minerals are mined, processed, and traded without inflicting serious harm on humans, nonhumans, and the natural environment ( Hund et al., 2020 ).

Deep-seated minerals are usually extracted using underground mining. To access such mineral deposits, miners drill tunnels and shafts into the rock. In surface mining, soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit are removed to obtain the mineral of interest. Surface mining requires less mechanization and financial investment than underground mining. Another type of mining is placer mining. It is used to remove valuable minerals from sediments found in river channels, beach sands, and other locations. A common technique in placer mining is panning, when prospectors recover minerals from alluvial placers formed in river or stream sediments by separating particles of the wanted mineral from soil or gravels by washing the alluvial mixture in a pan with water. Gold, cassiterite (tin), platinum, diamonds, magnetite, and a few gemstones are the principal minerals sourced from placer deposits. Due to the low cost and relative simplicity, panning is one of the easiest, least intrusive, and cheapest ways to extract minerals ( United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2015 ).

Different categories of mining can be identified based on the volume of extracted mineral output. Large-scale mining (LSM), which typically involves a company with many employees, is frequently distinguished from other types of mining because of the large volumes of output associated with it. LSM companies are frequently divided into three sub-groups: “majors,” “mid-tiers,” and “juniors” ( Rodríguez-Novoa & Holley, 2023 , p. 2). The structure of the global mining industry is heavily skewed toward a handful of “majors” that control most of the world’s active mining production sites ( Rodríguez-Novoa & Holley, 2023 ). According to some sources, the top 150 mining companies make up less than 4% of the industry’s participants but produce 80% of the world’s metal output and handle the majority of global trade transactions ( Sidorenko et al., 2020 ). Small-scale mining (SSM) is usually associated or even used synonymously with artisanal mining. The two terms are often merged in policy and specialized literature and used collectively as artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM).

ASM refers to mining that is primarily motivated by poverty and is frequently observed in remote rural areas ( Hunter & Ofosu-Peasah, 2022 ; World Health Organization [WHO], 2016 ). ASM provides a critical livelihood for millions of people across the world, but a sizable portion of the world’s minerals and gemstones are produced by artisanal and small-scale miners who work in hazardous and unsafe conditions ( World Bank, 2017 ). Colombian law, for instance, categorizes ASM as a form of subsistence mining and defines it as follows:

mining activity carried out by natural persons or groups of individuals engaged in the open-pit extraction and collection, by manual means and using manual tools, of river sands and gravels for the construction industry, clays, precious metals and precious and semi-precious stones, without the use of any kind of mechanized equipment or machinery (Decree No. 1666 ( 2016 ), art. 2.2.5.1.5.3).

Subsistence mining in Colombia is closely intertwined with the culture and identity of Colombians of African descent. Traditional mining for many of these miners involves activities relying on non-mechanized techniques like barequeo— a gold panning technique. 1 For many barequeadors , gold panning is what “made them feel free and not dependent on others for their material needs; a job they learned from their parents and were hoping to pass on to their children and grand-children” ( Espitia, 2019 , n.p.). 2 In Ghana, gold mining has also been carried out for hundreds of years and remains a popular livelihood activity in rural communities ( Bansah et al., 2016 , p. 9). Mining is widely operated in Ghana by both licensed operators and unlicensed miners popularly known as galamsey ( Mantey et al., 2020 ). Galamseyers extract gold that large-scale mines are unable to access or uninterested in reaching and may operate under the protection of community chiefs. Customary leaders have a considerable level of authority and legitimacy among local inhabitants and have in some cases successfully “endorsed” and “protected” unlicensed miners ( Banchirigah, 2008 , p. 35). Some chiefs have reportedly been bribed by illegal gold miners to disregard the law and regulatory processes ( Asori et al., 2023 ).

Illegal Mining

Although the term illegal mining has not been agreed upon universally, and the exact extent of this crime is difficult to estimate, it has attracted significant attention in recent years, including efforts to understand and counter the problem at the international level ( Financial Action Task Force [FATF], 2015 ; International Criminal Police Organization [INTERPOL], 2022 ; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2011 ; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2023 ). Most commonly, the term refers to mining activity that is carried out by an individual, group of people, or corporate entity without complying with the requirements of applicable laws. It can also apply to any prospecting and/or extractive activities in areas where the exercise of such activities is prohibited in general or only prohibited when certain equipment, methods, or chemicals (e.g., mercury) are used ( UNODC, 2023 ).

Illegal mining is a broad term. It may be associated with subsistence mining, whereby artisanal and small-scale miners operate without a license or in contravention of the conditions of the license. It can also occur as a corporate crime. Private companies in the mining industry rarely operate without a license. Their criminal conduct is more commonly associated with bribery when entering a foreign market and during licensing ( Brady, 2020 ), and when companies generate illicit profits by evading labor, safety, and environmental regulations ( UNODC, 2023 ). Illegal mining can also be intertwined with the crimes of organized criminal groups, spearheaded by transnational criminal syndicates, and of rebel formations and terrorist organizations ( Zabyelina & Uhm, 2020a ).

Illegal Mining Versus Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining

Illegal mining should be conceptualized separately from artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM)—even though the two types of mining have been frequently confused and conflated ( Hunter, 2020 ). Hunter notes that differentiating between illegal mining and ASM may ultimately depend on the domestic legislation in place. Where ASM is expressly forbidden by domestic law, only miners who have a title and/or any other authorization required by law extract minerals legally. If ASM is not prohibited in national legislation, but it is controlled through specific regulations and protocols, any mineral extraction without a title or in contravention of existing rules and requirements for this kind of activity is considered illegal ( Hunter, 2020 ). Nonetheless, ASM—even if illegal from the statutory viewpoint—is a subsistence type of mining that typically supplements income and supports livelihood. It may have a high degree of legitimacy at the grassroots level and can be formalized under favorable conditions and with appropriate incentives ( Wagner & Hunter, 2020 ).

One way of drawing a distinction between illegal mining and ASM is to conceptualize ASM as informal mining. According to the OECD (2017 , p. 6), although mining without a title, with some exceptions, is criminalized in most countries and thus constitutes a criminal offense, the term illegal mining is distinguished from informal mining by the severity of the underlying offense. Illegal mining is closely linked to the operations controlled or directly perpetrated by organized criminal groups, and it is commonly intertwined with serious abuses, such as forced labor, including the worst forms of child labor, and gross human rights violations ( OECD, 2011 ). Organized criminal groups engaged in illegal mining also tend to use firearms to commit the offense and operate with large quantities of illegally mined metals or minerals ( UNODC, 2023 ).

The increasing global scarcity of natural resources and the persistently high prices for mined commodities have made illegal mining and trafficking in metals and minerals a lucrative criminal enterprise ( Zabyelina & Uhm, 2020a ). According to some sources, gold in particular has become so profitable that it has surpassed cocaine as the main source of revenue for criminal organizations and illegal armed groups ( Berg et al., 2021 ). In some countries, like Colombia, the proceeds from illegal mining have been anticipated to come close to surpassing those from drug trafficking ( OECD, 2017 ; Organization of American States [OAS], 2022b ). In order for mining to be considered legal in Colombia, miners must formalize their operations in accordance with environmental and technical standards established by the government; however, due to the bureaucratic red tape and high costs associated with formalization, many miners choose to carry on with their operations without the necessary permits and environmental and technical standards ( Berg et al., 2021 ). This often turns artisanal and small-scale miners into easy prey for extortion and exploitation by criminal organizations. Many Colombian subsistence miners find themselves caught between the government’s crackdown on illegal mining, on the one side, and criminal organizations and gangs (e.g., BACRIM— Bandas Criminales ), on the other side ( Ibarra Sanchez, 2017 ).

In South Africa, miners called zama zamas— a Zulu term that translates as “take a chance”—operate in active and closed mining shafts illegally ( Nesvet, 2020 ). Not only do they face the precarious conditions of working in underground mine shafts, but they are also subjected to extortion by criminal gangs. In most cases they do not report their victimization to the police because many zama zamas came to South Africa from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Lesotho, among other countries, illegally and fear deportation ( Martin, 2019 , p. 2).

Although ASM is first and foremost a subsistence type of mining that usually supplements incomes, it may contribute to criminal enterprises, with artisanal and small-scale miners becoming an integral part of transnational criminal hierarchies and networks. Artisanal and small-scale miners—whether they mine legally or in contravention of ASM legislation—are often controlled by criminal organizations that use violence and intimidation to enforce discipline and ensure that even the most unrealistic production quotas are met. They defend the artisanal and small-scale miners who work for them from rival criminal syndicates. They may also buy off the police or other state agencies if they make attempts to disrupt illegal mining and trafficking in metals and minerals. “The higher up the syndicate pyramid, the more sophisticated the criminality” ( Martin, 2019 , p. 4).

Trafficking in Metals and Minerals

Illegal mining is intimately tied to the trafficking in precious minerals and metals. Mineral resources hardly represent a huge source of income and wealth if they cannot be traded. Due to this, illegal mining involves a complicated web of mineral transactions along the supply chain that includes miners, refiners and smelters, exporters and metal brokers, metal traders and dealers, manufacturers, and other parties ( van der Valk et al., 2020 ).

Absent a universal legal term, trafficking in metals and minerals may be defined as

dealing or trading in a metal or mineral, in a natural, processed, or manufactured form (a) without lawful authority where such authority is required by law; (b) without a license, permit, or certificate, granted by competent authorities; (c) contravening the conditions of said license, permit, or certificate; or (d) in a manner that otherwise contravenes relevant national legislation. ( UNODC, 2023 , p. 53)

Criminal organizations involved in trafficking in metals and minerals typically exploit loopholes in legal frameworks related to customs clearance, due diligence, and monitoring protocols, along with deficiencies and vulnerabilities of global supply chains ( OECD, 2011 ).

Criminal organizations abuse legitimate minerals supply chains and infiltrate legitimate businesses to rip off revenues through the trade in illegally sourced minerals and metals ( van der Valk et al., 2020 ). For instance, gold smelters and refiners have been reported to buy gold—intentionally or not—from dubious suppliers and without sufficient scrutiny about the source of the metal ( Society of Threatened Peoples [STP], 2018 ). When criminally derived gold is melted down and combined with legally sourced gold, the signs of origin become easily obfuscated. This makes gold readily amenable to “laundering” ( Berg et al., 2021 ; INTERPOL, 2022 ; OAS, 2022a ; Zabyelina & Heins, 2020 ). Criminal intermediaries and brokers may even provide fraudulent purchase receipts or fake certificates of origin, stating the metal was extracted at legal mines.

In 2018 , a United States–based gold refinery pled guilty for its failure to maintain an adequate anti–money laundering control over its suppliers. According to the stipulated facts filed with a U.S. court, the refinery purchased and refined billions of dollars of gold from suppliers around the world, mainly Latin America, without requesting or obtaining adequate, or in some instances any, identification, and information regarding the source of their gold. The refinery also accepted gold from countries and customers where the country-by-country and customer-by-customer sales volume records along with open-source and publicly available information indicated that gold had likely been smuggled across borders in response to law enforcement crackdowns and that front companies were used to hide the source and origin of gold ( United States Department of Justice [DOJ], 2018 ). This is not an isolated case. There is mounting evidence to suspect that other refineries in the United States and elsewhere benefit from criminally derived gold, alongside legal gold ( STP, 2018 ).

Some gold laundering schemes are particularly complex and involve multiple jurisdictions. For instance, in some schemes, illegally mined gold is smuggled from country A to country B. Fraudulent paperwork is then used to create the pretense that the illegal gold was extracted by artisanal and small-scale gold mines in country B. In reality, those mines are long-inactive and only on paper “produce” any gold output. The “laundered” gold is then processed and traded in country B and on international gold markets ( OAS, 2022b ). This scheme can be illustrated with an example of gold smuggling from Venezuela to Colombia. According to some sources, around a third of about 200 illegal mines documented in Colombia in 2020 are located along the Colombia-Venezuela border ( Berg et al., 2021 ). Much of the gold mined illegally in Venezuela is smuggled across the border and then passed off as Colombia-mined gold. When the smuggled Venezuelan gold is melted down and any traces of its origins are removed, criminal intermediaries provide fraudulent purchase receipts and fake certificates of origin, claiming that the gold was mined legally in Colombia. Similar to the “laundering” pattern featuring Colombia, illegally sourced Venezuelan gold is smuggled to other countries, like Guyana and Brazil, where artisanal and small-scale gold mining is prominent, before being sold to companies in Canada, the European Union, the United States, and other international destinations ( Taraciuk Broner & Rapido Ragozzino, 2022 ).

Typically, artisanal and small-scale miners, even those who work legally, sell their gold to middlemen. The latter mastermind trafficking schemes to get the gold to international markets for higher profits ( Smith & Franklin, 2017 ). Gold may be smuggled in hand luggage by “mules” ( Lewis et al., 2019 ). For other smuggling operations, gold is casted into common items, such as wrenches, nuts, bolts, and belt buckles, and covered with a layer of steel or silver to avoid airport security checks ( INTERPOL, 2022 ). “Gold in these forms is easier to conceal from border authorities and its value can be considerably understated on the bills of lading” ( FATF, 2015 , p. 12). Smugglers also cast illegal gold into gold bars fraudulently stamped with the logos of major refineries. These gold bars are then injected into the legitimate supply chain, ending up in the gold reserves of banks, individual investment portfolios, jewelry stores, and as elements of electronic devices sold by multinational companies ( Hobson, 2019 ).

In its resolution 2019 / 2023 , the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) emphasized the importance of developing comprehensive, multifaceted, and coherent strategies and measures to combat precious metal trafficking and invited member states to take appropriate measures to prevent and combat precious metal trafficking by criminal organizations ( ECOSOC Resolution, 2019 ). In its resolution 75/196 in 2020 , the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) stressed the substantial increase in the volume and variety of criminal offenses associated with precious metals and minerals trafficking, acknowledging their potential use as a source of funding for organized crime and terrorism ( UNGA Resolution, 2020 ). It also called for appropriate and effective measures to prevent and combat precious metals trafficking by organized criminal groups. These and other high-level discussions clearly highlight the importance of taking appropriate and effective measures to prevent and combat illegal mining and trafficking in metals and minerals and show that these crimes have made their way onto the international agenda as an issue that requires the international community’s immediate attention.

Other Serious Crimes Associated With Illegal Mining

Criminal organizations often control mining sites, effectively converting them into “hot spots” for other serious crimes characterized by widespread violence and violations of human rights committed against subsistence miners and indigenous communities ( INTERPOL, 2022 ).

Trafficking in Persons

Concerns with trafficking in persons in global minerals supply chains, particularly those for gold, have become widespread on a global scale ( Cortés-McPherson, 2020a , 2020b ; Verité, 2016 ; Wagner & Hunter, 2020 ). Although mining, and the extractive industry in general, may be associated with economic development and growth, it may also facilitate sex trafficking and labor exploitation. In addition, because mining operations typically take place in remote areas with poor infrastructure and fragmented presence of state institutions and services, trafficking victims are not easily detected and immediately rescued ( United States Department of State, 2015 ; Wagner & Hunter, 2020 ).

Sex trafficking has been documented in the gold mining industry in Peru, particularly in Madre de Dios—the country’s main source of illegally mined gold ( United States Department of State, 2015 ). Under the guise of a job, such as cleaning or waitressing, trafficked women and girls are frequently taken to Madre de Dios and end up in a prostibar— a Peruvian term for brothel ( Cortés-McPherson, 2020a , p. 375). Due to the isolation of the mining camps in remote areas and the local miners’ demand for commercial sex, women and girls are often unable to leave. Adults and children have also been victimized in forced labor in gold mines and service jobs in nearby makeshift camps by traffickers who abused them through deceptive recruitment, debt-bondage, withholding or failing to pay wages, threats, and use of brutal physical force ( United States Department of State, 2022 ).

It is also known that Colombian bandas criminales force locals to work as sex workers or miners in the illegal gold mining industry ( van Uhm, 2020 ). The use of child labor in the mining industry in this region is closely intertwined with extreme poverty that prevails in the outlying mining districts where it is difficult to find other employment opportunities. In the mining towns of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, some parents or guardians believe that boys over the age of 14 are physically and mentally capable of working alongside adults. This thinking makes them assign mining tasks to children and view child labor as part of the household chores ( International Labor Organization, 2005 ).

Artisanal and small-scale cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been linked to labor abusive practices at least since 2015 ( United States Department of State, 2022 ). The demand for green energy batteries mentioned earlier attracted miners to the DRC’s cobalt belt. Cobalt is a vital component of the majority of rechargeable lithium batteries used in electric vehicles like Tesla. Currently, the DRC accounts for the mining of roughly 70% of the world’s cobalt, with artisanal and small-scale miners producing 10%–30% of it in very hazardous conditions ( Lawson, 2021 ). Child labor triggered by poverty is widely used in the artisanal mining industry in the DRC ( Lawson, 2021 ; United States Department of State, 2022 ).

Burkina Faso is another country where child labor in artisanal mines has been documented. Here, traffickers deceitfully enlist Burkinabe children under the guise of educational opportunities, only to use them as farmworkers, gold panners, and washers in artisanal and small-scale mines. Children from Burkina Faso are transported by traffickers to Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Senegal, and Niger to work as forced laborers in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM; United States Department of State, 2022 ).

Financing of Illegal Armed Groups and Terrorist Organizations

Criminal organizations involved in the mining industry often do not directly operate a mine or manage artisanal and small-scale miners. In most cases, they generate revenue through extortion of both legal and informal miners operating in the areas under their control. Extortion is associated with the financing of terrorism and illegal armed groups as it provides a stable source of easy revenue for these criminal organizations ( Idrobo et al., 2014 ). Because small-scale miners who operate without a mining permit or license work illegally, they are unlikely to report to the police that they have been the victim of extortion. Under these conditions, they often have no choice but to bend to the demands for illegal rents from criminal organizations—to be paid as cash, physical labor at mining sites, or other services to the criminal organization.

In its resolution 2482 ( 2019 ) focusing on threats to international peace and security, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) expressed its concern with illegal exploitation and trafficking of natural resources, particularly precious metals, as a source of income for insurgents, rebel forces, and terrorist organizations ( UNSC Resolution, 2019 , para. 13). The UNSC reported that the mining of gold and other precious metals and minerals has become an increasingly significant source of terrorism financing for global affiliates of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Qaeda in Africa ( United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate [CTED], 2022 ). ISIL affiliates in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger with a stronghold in Africa have taken advantage of the gold mining industry by extorting rents from the miners working in illegal gold mines, hiring smugglers to transport criminally derived gold to refiners and then on to global gold traders ( CTED, 2022 ). The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen have also been reported to be in conflict in Mali’s Gourma region, partly over control of gold mining areas and the ability to collect zakat from artisanal and small-scale gold miners—a form a tax for Muslims ( CTED, 2022 ).

Risk analyses of the gold mining in Latin America also highlight the industry’s susceptibility to be used to finance illegal armed groups ( OAS, 2022a ; OECD, 2017 ). Colombia is a striking example of extortion by criminal organizations against artisanal and small-scale miners and mid- and large-size mining companies, including transnational corporations ( OAS, 2022a ). Both the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC) and the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional or ELN) are known to have financed their political activities with profits derived from illegal mining and trafficking in metals and minerals ( OAS, 2022a ). The increase in the price of gold and other minerals on the international market, the difficulties in maintaining a steady flow of money from drug production and trafficking, and the success of the Colombian government in weakening the military and financial structures of illegal armed groups have all given incentives to the dissident FARC and ELN groups to look for revenue elsewhere. They conveniently locate extortion businesses in remote areas where illegal and ASM operations are traditionally located ( OECD, 2017 ). In fact, these illegal armed groups rely on access to and influence over small and artisanal miners who extract gold as one of the primary ways to raise funds and “launder” profits from other crimes ( OECD, 2017 ). The peace process with the FARC has generally reduced the presence and influence of the rebel group, but some dissident segments continue to hold firm control over illegal miners in a number of strategic regions ( OECD, 2017 ). Not only do the FARC and ELN rebel groups impose rents on artisanal and small-scale miners, but they also offer “protection” to mining companies ( Bargent, 2016 ). The risks to illegal armed groups are low, because they receive revenue directly from the areas they control. This leaves the authorities with a very small window to intervene against extortion from criminal groups in the mining industry ( OAS, 2022a ).

Harmful Effects of Illegal Mining on Humans, Wild Animals, and the Environment

Illegal mining is not only dangerous from a safety standpoint for those who choose to engage, but it also harms the environment, habitats, human and animal life, and Indigenous communities and their livelihoods. Whereas it might be argued that all mining is environmentally destructive and causes harm to the lands and peoples in and around mining sites, the consequences of illicit mining are considerably worse. Some of these consequences may take years to remediate or may be irreversible.

The environmental risks of illegal mining are many. The environmental effects include chemical pollution of water bodies from the processing of mined minerals, including arsenic, mercury, cyanide, and cadmium; heavy metal contamination of soils, which results in the loss of cropland; a decrease in food productivity due to infertile land; and the extinction of wildlife due to the clearing of forests that serve as habitat for many animal species. For many years, illegal mining has been expanding in protected areas in the Amazon—one of the world’s richest and most diversified biomes. Millions of species inside the indigenous Yanomami territory in the Brazilian Amazon have lost their habitat due to illegal gold mining ( Gongaza, 2023 ).

By its very nature, mining depletes, diverts, and potentially seriously pollutes water resources ( Aryee et al., 2003 ). Water is used in the processing of minerals, the control of dust, and the heating and cooling of equipment, making mining a water-intensive industry. Water is also used by metal producers as a solvent for chemical reagents needed to separate target metals from other metals ( Ochianu, 2019 ). Acid mine drainage, heavy metal contamination and leaching, erosion, and sedimentation critically affect water quality. Even at very low concentrations, some metals can produce compounds that are toxic and carcinogenic ( Gilbert & Albert, 2016 ; Mantey et al., 2020 ).

Mercury contamination of water and soil, and its subsequent accumulation in food staples, such as fish—a major source of dietary protein in many regions—negatively affects the livelihood of local communities ( Human Rights Council [HRC], 2013 ). To process gold from the ore, mercury is used to create gold amalgam. When the gold amalgam is heated, mercury vapors are released. These vapors are hazardous to human health and the environment ( HRC, 2013 ; WHO, 2016 ). Mercury has been shown to increase the risk of fetal malformation, neurodevelopmental disorders, physical defects, and reduced IQ ( HRC, 2013 ). It is a persistent pollutant that can contaminate areas for decades, having an impact on generations ( Esdaile & Chalker, 2018 ; Vergara-Murillo et al., 2022 ). In 2013 , to combat mercury poisoning, countries adopted the text of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global treaty named after a Japanese town where a chemical company caused widespread mercury poisoning decades ago. The convention imposes obligations on governments and businesses to protect citizens and communities from the harmful effects of mercury exposure, including by imposing controls on polluting industries. In terms of mining, the convention requires governments to promote mercury-free gold processing methods, take special precautions to protect vulnerable populations from exposure, and end harmful gold mining practices. The Minamata Convention entered into force in 2017 and currently has 140 states parties, including 39 countries in Africa and 24 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. 3

In addition to land and water pollution with hazardous and toxic chemicals, illegal mining is almost always associated with the use of environmentally unsafe equipment. Illegal miners operate dredges, hydraulic excavators, and other kinds of machinery ( de Aguiar, 2023 ). Private companies have been accused by environmentalists of complicity in illegal mining, such as when they sell equipment to miners without due diligence. Greenpeace International criticized a number of producers of mining equipment for failing to utilize remote geolocating technology to monitor the equipment they sell to miners. Remote monitoring by producers of mining equipment could be used to alert the authorities whenever the machines cross into protected areas and Indigenous lands ( de Aguiar, 2023 ).

Other problems associated with illegal mining are deforestation and loss of agricultural land ( Bansah et al., 2016 ; Boadi et al., 2016 ). The latter is an acute problem in rural areas where the agrarian economy serves as the prime source of livelihood ( Ofosu et al., 2020 ). The expansion of mining sites reduces agricultural land and may result not only in lower agricultural production but also hunger. This has been a recorded problem in Ghana, where the alteration of farmlands into mine lands has created local food deficits and food price hikes ( Gilbert & Albert, 2016 ). Loss of agricultural land has also been linked to illegal mining because the latter can alter water courses of streams and rivers, depriving downstream users of their source of water ( Bansah et al., 2016 ). Communities that lose access to water due to a watercourse change are compelled to leave their homes. Illegal mining–induced displacement has been a recurrent problem affecting indigenous communities in different parts of the world ( Ibarra Sanchez, 2017 ; Moloney, 2015 ; Taraciuk Broner & Rapido Ragozzino, 2022 ).

Illegal mining and trafficking in metals and minerals have emerged as crimes of concern for the international community because of the involvement of organized criminal groups, rebels, and terrorist organizations. Researchers looking into the issue have noted that in some areas, criminal organizations have switched from producing and trafficking drugs or committing other serious crimes to illegal mining, trafficking in metals and minerals, and other crimes associated with mining because these activities are financially lucrative and carry fewer risks.

The involvement of criminal organizations in the mining industry comes with dire costs for miners, towns and villages surrounding mining sites, and the environment. If criminal organizations are successful in gaining a foothold in mining regions and seize control over the extraction of minerals from mining sites, their presence typically ushers in sex trafficking, labor exploitation, forced child labor, and other crimes. Miners, including children, are often compelled to labor at illegal mines and are forced to work excruciating hours for little to no pay. Women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking in mining camps. Against this backdrop, toxic chemicals used in mining poison the environment and endanger the livelihood of local communities and wildlife. Illegal mining associated with criminal organizations also results in deforestation and loss of land for crops, forced displacement, and other devastating socioeconomic and environmental conditions.

The problem of illegal mining remains unsolved, partially due to the blurred line between illegal mining associated with criminal organizations and informal mining that is a source of livelihood for artisanal and small-scale miners. Any effective response to illegal mining should be planned to combat criminal organizations while safeguarding artisanal and small-scale miners. This can be done by developing capacity and implementing formalization programs that assist subsistence miners in legitimizing their work and earnings.

Governments also need to minimize opportunities for misconduct for private companies in the mining industry. Promoting transparency of mineral supply chains is needed and has been highly recommended by international organizations like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Improving traceability in mineral supply chains and introducing comprehensive due diligence programs for the private sector are some other promising good practices toward eradication of illegal mining.

ILLEGAL MINING AS THREAT TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN GHANA: A POLITICAL ECOLOGY APPROACH

Within the past few decades, Ghana's mining sector specifically the small scale mining subsector has been marred by controversies mainly due to its threat to sustainable development. This paper provides some insights into the inextricable linkage between sustainable development and illegal gold mining popularly referred to as " galamsey " and examines the effectiveness of political response and processes at the local and national level. While acknowledging the incommensurable role of the mining sector in poverty reduction through employment generation, the adverse impact on the environmental, economic and social fabric of society cannot be ignored. Notwithstanding this hard evidence at hand, successive governments are handicapped to reverse the devastating effects partly due to the complicated and multifaceted nature of the small scale mining sub-sector. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in three illegal mining communities comprised 12 illegal miners and officials task to monitor mining activities. We also extensively utilized official government reports and relevant academic literature to draw attention to the multiplicity and diversity of illegal mining. By examining livelihood strategies and reviewing successive government policies on mining and sustainability, we discovered gaps in the area of policy implementation and systemic marginalization of majority of communities where illegal mining occurs. In this paper, we advocate for a broader multidimensional and sectoral collaboration as a fundamental approach to confront illegal small scale mining activities.

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Rosina Sheburah Essien

Recent years have witness a new approach to development thinking. An approach that place emphasis on grassroots participation, plurality of injustices, and recognition of unequal power relations in development processes. More crucially, it stresses that 'real' development cannot occur in developing countries or anywhere else unless the strategies which are being formulated and implemented are people centered and environmentally sustainable. In this paper, a narrative about illegal gold mining (galamsey) and land degradation in Prestia, a locality in the western part of Ghana, will be discussed. This narrative finds grounds in a growing environmental discourse by local government officials, local environmental researchers, and international development agencies such as the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development (DfID) that illegal gold mining activities, which is usually done on small-scale basis, are inextricably linked with poverty- that participants are driven to mine illegally because of widespread unemployment (Hilson & Pardie, 2006). As a result, all small-scale mining activities are generally identified in international development circles as the most rudimentary and poverty-driven branch of the mining sector (ibid, p.107). The paper will also highlight the main arguments of the narrative, policy implication and reasons for policy outcomes

International Journal of Global Sustainability

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The study aimed at assessing the common constraints that affect the enforcement of small-scale mining laws and regulations which have created a vacuum for illegal operators to infiltrate the space with the associated environmental and social cost implications. Underpinned by the institutional theory, the study analyzes from existing theoretical and empirical studies to assess why institutions and agencies on artisanal and small-scale mining find it difficult to clamp down on illegal gold extractive activities. Retrospective literature analysis was the main method employed by the study. A synthesis from the review suggests that key challenges revolve around poor allocation of resources, poor collaboration among multiple levels and sectors, protection rackets by powerful beings in society, connivance of some traditional authorities and members, poverty, green squeezing, and cumbersome nature of ASM licensing process in Ghana. The study contends on the one hand that laws, policies, and...

Nathan Andrews

In Ghana, an artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) activ ity called galamsey is considered illegal because operators have not formally registered their sites with the government. Because of recent cases of the involvement of non-Ghanaian nationals in this activity, the government has established the Inter-Ministerial Task Force Against Illegal Mining to curb its growth. However, this endeavor has failed to account for how the absence of socioeconomic safety nets in most mining com munities has led many families, including children, into such a business. Drawing upon primary data gathered at Abosso, a galamsey site in the Western Region of Ghana, this article argues that until the underlying causes of socioeconomic mar ginalization and unemployment are properly addressed, the quest to regularize these operations will remain far-fetched.

Kefa Otiso , Joseph Taabazuing

This paper explores the impact of mining on the everyday lives of people in the Wassa West District, Western Region, Ghana. It is based on an interpretative methodology involving focus group discussions and in-depth interviews, complemented with an analysis of policy documents. The results reveal an extensive geographic transformation of livelihoods at various scales as a result of the local people being displaced from their lands that have become contested economic spaces. Monetary compensation for farmers who have lost their lands to mining companies remains a contentious issue, with farmers reporting that they are always at the losing end of any contestation for land and compensation. Furthermore, the local public perception is that there is hardly any trickle down of mining benefits to the local communities to improve their lives. After more than two decades of operation of various minerals and mining laws, our findings point to a conflicting and confused mining sector policy environment that disadvantages local communities. There is therefore a need to revise the country’s mining laws to reflect international best practices, to help make Ghana a sustainable mining investment destination in Africa, and to facilitate sustainable economic development in the country.

Marcellinus Essah

The performance of the gold mining industry globally is in no doubt. However, the industry's susceptibility to the frequent rise and fall in the price of gold, coupled with the various negative impacts it generates in mining communities have made it reliability for economic growth and development questionable. These impacts have often been grouped under environmental, social and economic impacts. Using a case study of Goldfields Damang in Ghana, this study examined in detail how stakeholder communities within the catchment areas of Goldfields can be developed through sustainable mining practices. The study used political ecology theory to understand the powers of the various actors (multinational companies and government) and to further investigate how decisions taken by these bodies have led to a devastation of the local environment. The study revealed that while Goldfields Damang has been doing a lot in terms of development in the areas of education, livelihood programs and in...

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William Angko

Small scale mining especially illegal mining commonly called “Galamsey” has attracted much attention in recent times. This study seeks to explore the emerging trends and challenges of small scale mining in northern Ghana. Using structured questionnaire, key informant interviews as well as in-depth interviews, the study sampled 57 stakeholders from two major mining communities in the Wa East district of the Upper West Region namely; Manwe and Jonga communities via purposive, snowball and accidental sampling techniques. The result revealed that majority of the respondents in the small scale mining in these communities were Ghanaians between the ages of 18 and 40 years although few minors were recorded to have engaged in the practice. The essay concludes that the search for livelihood among rural dwellers influence them to ignore the cultural norms that govern the use of the natural environment as it gradually look normal for people to engage in activities that degrade the environment ...

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The Ghanaian mining industry is a controversial one. Many believe that the industry has contributed greatly towards the socio-economic development of the country in terms of employment and social infrastructure. However, others believe that the negative effects of mining, especially the loss of fertile agricultural lands, leave the people of mining communities much poorer in relative terms than they were before. This study therefore sought to ascertain the sustainability of the Ghanaian mining industry in the light of this controversy through an examination of the ecological, social and economic features of small-scale gold mining and the impacts on mining communities. It appears that land degradation, environmental pollution and many socio-economic problems have been major issues with communities where small-scale mining is practised in Ghana. Most of these negative impacts are a result of deficiencies on the part of the regulatory bodies charged with monitoring the mining industry. Solutions to these problems are required to ensure that the industry contributes positively to the Ghanaian nation. They include adequately resourcing regulatory bodies, streamlining the process of license acquisition and applying stricter sanctions for offenders. Additionally, regularising and proper monitoring of the informal sector and the provision of environmentally friendly equipment is critical.

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Natalia Yakovleva

Illegal Mining, ‘Worse Than at Any Other Time,’ Threatens Amazon, Study Finds

By Shasta Darlington

Dec. 10, 2018

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Fueled by the surging price of gold, an epidemic of illegal gold mining in the Amazon is threatening indigenous territories and other protected lands in the world’s largest tropical rain forest, according to a study published by a group of environmental organizations this week.

Analyzing data from six Amazon countries, researchers identified 2,312 illegal mining sites and 245 large-scale areas where miners have established sophisticated infrastructure, tearing down native forests and contaminating rivers with mercury as they dredge for gold and extract diamonds and coltan, which are used to make mobile phones.

“The problem is worse than at any other time in history,” said Alicia Rolla, one of the coordinators at the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network, known as RAISG, which published the study this week. “We wanted to give visibility to the enormity of an issue that doesn’t respect borders.”

The report compiled data from local partners, news reports and research from eight independent environmental groups that scanned satellite images, mapping mining sites in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Each site on the map contains details about the material being mined and the mines’ environmental and social impacts, such as how dredging disrupts rivers and how toxic pollutants seep into plants, animals and people. Venezuela had more illegal mines than any other country studied, followed by Brazil and Ecuador, according to the report.

The researchers hope to pressure governments to work together to combat the international criminal activity.

“When Brazilian authorities go after the miners, they flee to Venezuela and vice versa,” Ms. Rolla said. “There needs to be intergovernmental cooperation.”

However, she said, Brazil’s recent election of Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who has vowed to end the “industry” of fines imposed on companies that violate environmental laws, and halt the demarcation of indigenous lands, could represent a serious setback.

“If he does all the things he said he would do, things could get worse, not better,” she said. “When we started working on this project more than a year ago we didn’t imagine such a tragedy.”

Mr. Bolsonaro has made it clear he favors allowing more commercial activity in the Amazon, and wants to slash the budgets of government agencies that monitor and punish illegal activity there.

“Where there is indigenous land,” he said last year, “there is wealth underneath it.”

Although Mr. Bolsonaro has stepped back from threats to eliminate Brazil’s Environment Ministry and pull out of the Paris climate agreement, Brazil withdrew from hosting next year’s United Nations global summit on climate change after his election.

For environment minister, Mr. Bolsonaro has chosen Ricardo de Aquino Salles, a lawyer who was accused by a public prosecutor of illegally altering environmental impact maps while he was the environmental secretary for the state of São Paulo.

Experts say illegal logging and land invasions in the Brazilian Amazon rose as Mr. Bolsonaro gained traction ahead of his election in October. Between August 2017 and July 2018, deforestation rose 13.7 percent , the highest increase in a decade, according to Brazil’s Environment Ministry.

“It was crazy,” said Fany Ricardo, an anthropologist at Brazil’s SocioEnvironmental Institute, one of the groups involved in the research. “During the campaign deforestation rates just kept climbing and climbing, even in indigenous lands where it is strictly forbidden. Now there is still monitoring. Afterwards it’s going to be worse,” she added, referring to the administration of Mr. Bolsonaro, who takes office on Jan. 1.

The map published by RAISG shows illegal mining sites in 37 indigenous territories — 18 of them in Brazil — and near or surrounding another 78 indigenous territories.

“There are very serious consequences,” Ms. Ricardo said. “Beyond the pollution, miners are getting close to uncontacted tribes, which could pose a mortal threat in terms of illness and conflict.”

Mining is illegal inside indigenous territories, but in some cases tribes agree to look the other way in exchange for payment. RAISG members had hoped that exposing the extent of illegal activity would spur a crackdown and encourage governments to support alternative, sustainable forms of income, such as gathering and selling exotic fruits to high-end buyers.

“With our new president-elect, I don’t know what will happen,” Ms. Ricardo said.

In the report, the researchers also published case studies, for instance on the devastating toll that mercury, used in gold mining, has had on indigenous tribes and remote fishing communities.

The research highlighted a study of hair samples in territory of the Yanomami, an indigenous group whose land straddles Brazil and Venezuela. In the Aracaçá community there, where illegal mining is rampant, 92 percent of the hair samples showed high levels of mercury contamination.

The map also shows that illegal mining often overlaps with legal mining, and researchers plan to update it as more information becomes available. Ms. Rolla, the RAISG coordinator, stressed that the mining has deep societal consequences that need further documenting.

“The problem isn’t just deforestation and pollution, there is a serious social element that includes disease, prostitution and displacement,” Ms. Rolla said.

“What we need is more monitoring, not less,” she said. “And I fear the opposite is going to happen.”

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30 September 2021

Illegal mining in the Amazon hits record high amid Indigenous protests

Jeff Tollefson

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Illegal mining operations in Brazil such as the one shown here in the Yanomami Indigenous reserve pollute waterways and soil, and destroy the rainforest. Credit: João Laet/Guardian/eyevine

Indigenous territories, long a bulwark against deforestation in the Amazon, are under increasing threat in Brazil, according to an analysis of 36 years’ worth of satellite imagery. The data show that illicit mining operations on Indigenous lands and in other areas formally protected by law have hit a record high in the past few years, under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, underscoring fears that his policies and rhetoric are undermining both human rights and environmental protection across the world’s largest rainforest. These operations strip the land of vegetation and pollute waterways with mercury.

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Original research article, “illegal” gold mining operations in ghana: implication for climate-smart agriculture in northwestern ghana.

Department of Community Development, Faculty of Planning and Land Management, SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Wa, Ghana

Globally, climate-smart agriculture is highly recognized as an approach for sustainable agriculture and food systems. In Africa and other developing countries, climate-smart agriculture is observed to reposition and modify agricultural systems for improved food and nutritional security. Despite the relevance of the approach to sustainable agricultural planning, illegal gold mining in many parts of the society is placing constraints to its implementation and adoption through its contest with agricultural land for space and activities. Illegal gold mining is on the rise due to the lucrativeness of the non-regulated gold rush opportunities with hard consequences on sustainable agriculture and resilience food systems. As a result, this study seeks to investigate illegal gold mining and its environmental implication for climate-smart agriculture in Ghana. The study used a single case study using a mixed-methods approach to research. The study adopted purposive and systematic sampling techniques to select the study communities and respondents, respectively. Questionnaire and interviews were used to gather the primary data from respondents at the household level, as the unit of analysis. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis reveal that known agricultural practices such as terracing, crop rotation, use of domestic waste/manure, and irrigation of crops were affected adversely by activities of illegal mining. The study recommends the need for conscious efforts from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to sustain the ban on illegal mining with intensified monitoring and supervision while a systematic scheme involving relevant stakeholders is developed and implemented to ban illegal mining in Ghana completely. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture needs to develop an approach to support the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices by smallholder farmers to meet the food demand of their households.

Introduction

Mineral resources have become fundamental for economic development throughout the world. In several low- and middle-income countries that are rich in non-fuel mineral resources, mining contributes to national economic development ( Addison and Roe, 2018 ; Ericsson and Löf, 2019 ). Studies have reported that 10 of the 20 countries where mining contributes most have moved up one or two steps of the World Bank's countries classification between 1996 and 2016 ( Ericsson and Löf, 2017 , 2019 ; Addison and Roe, 2018 ). In particular, African countries have benefitted. Thus, socio-economic development indicators show signs of progress for African mineral-rich countries. In Guinea, for instance, the Papua New Guinea Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative reported that, in 2020, the industries contributed 89% to exports, 29% to gross domestic product (GDP), and 10.1% to corporate tax, salary and wage tax, dividends, and royalties ( Yamarak and Parton, 2021 ). In Kenya, Tanzania and other parts of developing economies where mining operates, whether on a large or small scale has contributed to per capita income through job creation, resulting in improved livelihood status of residents and communities ( Apollo et al., 2017 ; Mwakesi et al., 2020 ). In Kenya and Cote d'Ivoire, for instance, mining has observed to be an off-farm livelihood activity for farmers and other agriculturalists ( Apollo et al., 2017 ; Mwakesi et al., 2020 ). Notwithstanding the potential contributions of the mining industry to the economies of many developing countries, it has observed to be detrimental to sustainable development due to its hard implication on environmental sustainability and management ( Christmann, 2021 ; Yamarak and Parton, 2021 ).

Ghana is home to a number of precious minerals. Over the past decades, the mineral sector has contributed to ~37% of the exports of the country and accounted for ~8.4% of the GDP of the country in 2011 from 6.1% the previous year ( Ghana Statistical Service, 2010 ; Bach, 2014 ; Ofosu et al., 2020 ; Atta and Tholana, 2021 ). In recent years, gold production, for instance, has observed to increase substantially from <20,000 ounces in 1990 to 1.6 million ounces in 2016 ( Ofosu et al., 2020 ). The increase in gold mining in Ghana has also seen some significant improvement in the livelihoods of communities where gold mining is in operation ( Ofosu et al., 2020 ).

In Ghana, the people own the mineral resource with management power vested in the Government. The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, through the Geological Survey Department, the Minerals Commission, and Precious Minerals Marketing Cooperation Limited, oversees all aspects of the mineral sector of Ghana. The legislative framework for the mineral sector in Ghana is the minerals and mining act 703 of 2006. Under the provision of the law, no person has the authority to conduct reconnaissance, prospecting, exploration, or mining in Ghana unless the person has a mining license ( Ofosu-Mensah, 2010 ; Benmudez-Lugo, 2016 ). However, illegal mining (both foreign and Ghanaian nationals) continues unabated in the country despite government efforts to curb these activities ( Aryee, 2003 ; Darimani et al., 2013 ; Benmudez-Lugo, 2016 ). Illegal mining is defined locally (Ghanaian context) as mining operations in which miners without a license have no concessions of their own operate uncontrollably within concessions of large-scale mining companies or in areas prohibited for mining ( Aryee, 2003 ; Hilson et al., 2013 ).

In recent years, with dwindling opportunities for employment in the formal sector and the lucrativeness of gold mining, there has been an upsurge of miners, majority of them operating illegally ( Hilson, 2010 ; Hilson et al., 2013 ; Kwadwo et al., 2016 ; Obeng et al., 2019 ). Studies have already noted illegal gold mining as a way of livelihood diversification ( Hilson et al., 2013 ; Kwadwo et al., 2016 ), which this paper cannot contest. However, the activities of illegal gold mining is best known for its disastrous effects on the environment particularly agricultural land, causing many to view the activity as dirty, unprofitable, and unsustainable ( Ofosu-Mensah, 2010 ; Schueler et al., 2011 ; Ericsson and Löf, 2019 ; Atta and Tholana, 2021 ). Illegal mining over the years has been into serious competition for agricultural land for its operation ( Ansah and Smardon, 2015 ; Danyo and Osei-Bonsu, 2016 ; Ndabi, 2017 ; Atta and Tholana, 2021 ). Empirical studies have focused on the impact of illegal mining on the environment ( Amankwah, 2013 ; Ansah and Smardon, 2015 ; Prosper and Guan, 2015 ) with least attention paid to the environmental implications of the activity on climate-smart agriculture.

With agriculture being the mainstay of livelihood for the majority of people in Ghana ( International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2011 ; Sugden, 2013 ; Andrieu et al., 2020 ), sustainable and productive agriculture should be given the necessary attention as its productivity is dependent on access to quality land and water. As estimated by the Environmental protection agency (2016) , the quality of land for agricultural use (in mining operation communities) is fast diminishing largely due to the activities of illegal mining.

With illegal mining already diminishing the carrying capacity of the environment and climate change with it posing danger to the agricultural sector, Ghana is at a central point where it needs to pay attention to climate-smart agriculture. Climate-smart agriculture for this paper refers to agricultural practices that help smallholder farmers to sustainably manage systems of agriculture amidst climate change for improved productivity and income ( Obeng et al., 2019 ; Andrieu et al., 2020 ). Climate change has intensified the challenges faced by rain-fed agricultural systems. This suggests the need to harmonize protection of the environment, invest in smallholder agriculture, and improve food production and productivity.

Nadowli-Kaleo district is one of the districts in the Upper West Region where small-scale mining is in operation. The emergence of the mining extraction in the area has serious impact on the environment to include loss of farmlands, destruction of crops and forest cover, and pollution of water bodies ( Prosper and Guan, 2015 ). The Ghana News Agency (2018) report on “Galamsey activities is eating up Nadowli-Kaleo district” noted that artisanal miners have scarred the landscape with “excavated pits and trenches” particularly in Nanga, Vuuyiri, and Charikpong enclaves, which renders the land unsuitable for agricultural purposes. Literature has also indicated that over 2.5% of cultivable land has been destroyed in the district ( Environmental protection agency, 2016 ; Ministry of Food Agriculture, 2016 ). Mineral Commission of Ghana (2017) observed that illegal mining has occupied about 3.5% of the land, which had been initially used for agricultural activities. As result, the study aims to investigate the activities of illegal gold mining for climate-smart agriculture in the Nadowli-Kaleo district in the Upper West Region, Ghana. This study is critically important to contribute to literature on sustainable agriculture, food systems, and climate change adaptation in Ghana, in particular, and in Africa, in general. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: the review of related literature to include climate-smart agriculture and illegal mining and environmental sustainability and climate-smart agriculture in Ghana. The other sections include the study method and materials, results and discussions, and the implication of the study for planning for agriculture and sustainable food systems.

Review of Related Literature

This section presented existing literature on climate-smart agriculture and illegal mining. The section also presented literature on the need for environmental sustainability and climate-smart agriculture in Ghana.

Climate-Smart Agriculture and Illegal Mining

Climate change is already modifying production systems and exacerbating critical difficulties, including rising poverty and food insecurity [ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2009 ; Yiridomoh et al., 2020 ; Owusu and Yiridomoh, 2021 ; Waaswa et al., 2021 ]. This prompted the Paris Climate Change Agreement jointly with the Sustainable Development Goals to set the premise for serious investments in climate change technologies for sustainable future [Food and Agriculture Organization Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 2013 ; Andrieu et al., 2020 ; Waaswa et al., 2021 ]. The joint decision recognized the fact that developing countries must develop, prioritize, and invest in climate change technologies for climate risk reduction and adaptation. One approach to respond to the changing climate system is the adoption of climate-smart agriculture ( Asrat and Simane, 2017 ; Abegunde et al., 2019 ). Climate-smart agriculture is rooted in sustainable agriculture and rural development objectives, which, if reached, will contribute to achieving the sustainable development goals of reducing hunger and improved environmental management ( El-Fattal, 2012 ; Andrieu et al., 2020 ; Waaswa et al., 2021 ).

Climate-smart agriculture is an approach that strives to meet the following criteria: (1) increase agricultural productivity in a sustainable manner, (2) improve the resilience of agricultural production and food systems to environmental change, or (3) reduce net greenhouse gas emissions associated with the agriculture and forestry sectors ( Sugden, 2013 ; Angom et al., 2021 ; Waaswa et al., 2021 ). Rainforest Alliance (2016) added that climate-smart agriculture is not a defined set of practices or an entirely new type of agriculture, rather an approach that combines different methods under a climate change umbrella. Thus, it assesses the risks and needs of a specific farm or farming community through a climate impact lens and then addresses them using practices chosen for that particular situation. What that means is that climate-smart agriculture is not a universal approach but dependent on individual location. Appropriate practices will vary according to region, ecosystem, climate, and crop. For instance, common climate-smart practices such as planting diverse crops, composting and soil management for improved soil fertility, and water saving, harvesting, and retention systems, which improve water availability during times of drought, may be adopted depending on the climate and location ( El-Fattal, 2012 ). The practice gives farmers tools and a pathway to make their operations and livelihoods more productive and resilient in the face of the changing climate ( Angom et al., 2021 ). In other words, it creates the technical, policy, and investment conditions for achieving sustainable agriculture.

Although there is a growing interest in environmental sustainability for sustained agricultural productivity, unsustainable environmental practices are noted everywhere in the society. One particular antagonist to environmental management and sustainability is illegal mining. Illegal mining and the environment are linked inextricably with the former having disastrous implications on the later. The problem of illegal mining has been a matter of concern for a long time but it appears the challenges have been enormous and more visible in recent times ( Amankwah, 2013 ; Obeng et al., 2019 ; Atta and Tholana, 2021 ). Thus, illegal mining results in extensive land cover changes leading to loss of forest and farmland ( Prosper and Guan, 2015 ). The study of Schueler et al. (2011) on the impact of illegal mining on land use indicated that, apart from eroding the ecosystem services and placing constraints on conservation of natural resource base, illegal mining displaces farmers, thereby triggering increased deforestation, agricultural intensification, and land degradation. With the impact of illegal mining on the environment already observed, resilience and sustainable agricultural practices need to develop to enhance sustainable food systems for sustainable livelihoods of smallholder farmers [ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2009 ; Sullo et al., 2020 ; Owusu and Yiridomoh, 2021 ].

Arguments for Environmental Sustainability and Climate-Smart Agriculture in Ghana

The environment plays a significant role in the existence of humankind. Thus, economic growth and development, which are at the heart of man's survival, are dependent on the suitability of the environment. Although impossible to define environment ( Nasreen et al., 2006 ), it involves the aggregation of all the external conditions and influences affecting the life and development of a system or organism ( Boon et al., 2008 ). The environment is a home to fundamental resources upon which people depend on for their livelihoods. This is the reason why Opschoor (2007) perceived environment as envelope for range of biotic and a-biotic processes operating in and between the ecosystems, which provides human beings with natural resources and ecosystem services.

The benefits derive from the environment are enormous and therefore call for environmental sustainability. According to Morelli (2011 , p. 24), “environmental sustainability is defined as a condition of balance, resilience, and interconnectedness that allows human society to satisfy its needs while neither exceeding the capacity of its supporting ecosystems to continue to regenerate the services necessary to meet those needs nor by our actions diminishing biological diversity.”

Achieving environmental sustainability means ensuring sound consistent development that increases the environmental asset base and productivity, reduces and manages environmental risks, and recognizes the long-term implication for the intra and inter-generational equity ( Boon et al., 2008 ). The pains and wounds inflicted on the environment by humankind over the years are well-noted. These environmental concerns have double folded and dramatically expanded in recent years, and the effects on people livelihood are given more discussions at national and international deliberations ( World Bank, 2008 ). To fight for sound environmental management and sustainability involves rethinking development that entails more socially and environmentally responsibility ( Boon et al., 2008 ). With the interest in environmental sustainability increasing day in and out, more systems, individuals, communities, and nations are realizing the fundamentals of analyzing the impact of human activities on the environment and sustainable development [ World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), 1997 ].

Our environment is undergoing a cataclysm either by natural means or through anthropogenic forces [ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2009 ; Yiridomoh et al., 2021 ]. This particularly places serious threat to the agricultural sector which must feed the world population projected to increase to 9.8 billion by 2050 ( Food Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2013 ). This suggests pragmatic and innovative technologies and programs to ensuring that the world meets its food demand without placing much burden on the environment. Climate-smart agriculture is the right way to go to fight the magnitude, immediacy, and effect of climate and environmental change. The climate-smart agriculture approach is designed to identify and operationalize sustainable agricultural development for improved livelihoods and food security, especially among smallholder farmers, by improving the management and use of natural resources and adopting appropriate methods and technologies for production of agricultural goods ( Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 2013 ; Andrieu et al., 2020 ; Waaswa et al., 2021 ). A key component of the climate-smart agriculture is the integrated landscape approach that follows the principles of ecosystem management and sustainable land and water use. Climate-smart agriculture seeks to support countries to put in place the necessary policy and the technical and financial means to mainstream climate change considerations into agricultural sectors and to provide a basis for operationalizing sustainable agricultural development under changing conditions ( Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 2013 ).

Methods and Materials

The method and material section of the paper presented issues on study setting, the study design, data collection instruments, and approaches to data analysis.

Study Setting

The Nadowli District is one of the districts along the Black Volta corridor in the Upper West Region (see Figure 1 ). In line with the decentralization policy of Ghana, which came into being in the 1988 ( Ghana Statistical Service, 2010 ), Nadowli-Kaleo became a district in 2012 under Legislative Instrument 2101 with Nadowli as its capital. The Assembly is empowered as the highest political and administrative body in the district charged with the responsibility of facilitating the implementation of national policies. Under section 10 of the Local Government Act 1993 (Act 462), the Assembly exercises deliberative, legislative, and executive functions in the district. By this act, the Assembly is responsible for the overall development of the district through the preparation of development plans and budgets and other development initiatives.

Figure 1 . Nadowli-Kaleo district in (A) national context (B) upper west reginal context.

According to the Ghana Statistical Service (2010) , the Nadwoli-Kaleo District has 61,561 residents. The northwestern enclave of the district, which constitutes Charikpong, Saan, Zukpiri, Nanga, and Vuuyiri, assumes 10% of the total population of the district. These communities are located along the Black Volta River of which about 85% of the total land area is covered by vegetation and underlain by hydrothermal gold deposition. The presence of the gold deposit in the area has seen some activities of mining in the area over the last decade. The concession was given to Azumah Resources Limited, a Perth-based ASX listed Company, headquartered in Australia ( Prosper and Guan, 2015 ). Despite the official award of the concession to the mining company, illegal miners have forced their way into the area, depleting and devastating the whole environment due to poor mining practices. For regulating the activities of mining for environmental sustainability and management, the government of Ghana imposed ban on illegal mining with the popular phrase “operation vanguard.” Operation Vanguard is a military police joint task force set up by the President of Ghana in 2017 to combat the operation of galamsey in Ghana. However, the purpose of the operation vanguard was defeated as many illegal mining activities still went on before, during, and after the launch of the “operation vanguard.” Activities of illegal miners in the district have dreadful implication for activities of agriculture due to the majority of the dependents of the residents on agriculture for their livelihood. Mining as an economic activity is essential for the local economic development; however, it has severe environmental consequences and, if not properly managed, can conflict with existing community livelihood. For instance, surface mining with the support of mercury, which is non-degradable pollutant, is used by the illegal miners for the extraction of the gold, which has both short- and long-term implication for the communities and the district at large.

Study Design

The study adopted mixed-methods case study. According to Creswell (2007) , mixed methods helps build on the synergies of the two approaches (qualitative and quantitative) to give relevant and comprehensive findings on the subject under investigation, which, in this case, the implication of activities of illegal mining on sustainable environment and climate-smart agriculture in a district that is already vulnerable to climate change. Again, given the complexity of illegal mining and climate change and their replicate effects on the environment and agriculture, mixed methods provided the best approach for the study as the method allowed for the generation of in-depth information and involving a relatively larger number of participants in the study. This particularly afforded the study the opportunity to explain vividly the viewpoints of the participants on illegal mining and its implication on climate-smart agriculture in the Nadowli-Kaleo district.

A criterion purposive sampling strategy ( Patton, 2015 ) was used to select the study communities. Criterion sampling involves searching for cases that meet a certain criterion, which, in this case, communities hugely involve in activities of illegal mining in the Nadwoli Kaleo District. The reason for the adoption of the criterion sampling is to help make a sound decision about explanations most plausible to contribute to climate-smart agriculture amidst illegal mining and climate change in the study area. On the basis of the criterion purposive sampling, Nanga, Vuuyiri, and Charikpong communities were selected on the basis of their hugely involvement in illegal mining in the district. Again, in each of the three communities, systematic sampling (proportionate) was used to select household heads or their representatives for the study. On the basis of a reconnaissance survey conducted 21 January 2019, households with farming as their primary activity from each community were listed. The compiled register of households for each community was then arranged in alphabetical order, and one in three sampling ratio was applied to obtain the households. To ensure validity and accuracy of the process, a simple random sampling method was applied to determine the starting position for the selection of a household. On the basis of the systematic method of sampling, 111 (47 of 53 from Charikpong, 32 of 37 from Nanga, and 32 of 35 from Vuuyiri) smallholder food crop farmers were recruited for the study.

Questionnaire and interviews were conducted with the participants in all the three selected communities in May 2019. The questionnaires were granted to household heads who were involved in activities of farming, whereas the interviews were granted to the chiefs of the three communities: one officer at the Environmental Protection Management, one officer at the MOFA, one mineral commissioner, and four illegal miners as represented by Table 1 . Maximum variation purposive sampling approach was adopted to recruit the respondents for the interviews. Maximum variation involves selecting highly qualified persons who cover the spectrum of position and perspectives in relation to a phenomenon (activities of illegal mining, environmental sustainability, and climate-smart agriculture). On the basis of the maximum variation purposive sampling principle, 10 key informant interviews were conducted. The study main objective guided the development of the questionnaires and the interviews. Particular areas covered by the questionnaires and interview were the effects of illegal mining on the environment and implication of the environmental impact on climate-smart agriculture. All the questionnaires and the interviews were held with participants at their homes with each questionnaire and interview lasting for 40 and 47 min, respectively. Questionnaire and interview guides developed were in English language but translated into Dagaare (local language of participant) during the interview for easy understanding and for appropriate responses.

Table 1 . List of interviewees.

Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the questionnaires. Thus, data collected from the field were well-sorted out and fed into statistical package for social sciences for analysis. Analyzed data were represented using charts and tables. For qualitative data, thematic analysis was used to analyze the interviews. Thus, field data collected were transcribed, and the transcriptions were read repeatedly to identify common themes about illegal mining and its implication on climate-smart agriculture. The first two steps of thematic analysis outlined by Attride-Stirling (2001) and Braun and Clarke (2006) such as familiarization with transcript and themes identification guided the analysis.

Results and Discussion

This section of the paper presented results on the demographic characteristics of respondents, the effects of illegal mining on the environment, climate-smart agriculture practices of the area, and the implication of illegal mining on climate-smart agriculture. This section also presented results on the relationship between climate-smart agricultural practices and the factors of sustainable agriculture and food systems (soil, land, and water management).

Demographic Characteristics of Respondents

The demographic assessment of the respondents revealed that 64% were male and 36% were female. For age, majority of the respondents, which represented 33%, were within the age category of 40–49, 29% of the respondents were within age category of 50–59, 23% of the respondents were within the age category of 30–39, and 14% were 60 years and above. On the level of education of the respondents, 61% had no formal education, which implies that they did not go to school, 25% had basic education, 8% had secondary education, and 5% had tertiary education.

Effects of Illegal Mining on the Environment in the Nadowli-Kaleo District

Table 2 presents the results on the effects of illegal mining on the environment. The study revealed that surface exploration and mining of the gold deposit in the Nadwoli-Kaleo district by the illegal miners have resulted in the loss of biodiversity, formation of sinkholes, contamination of soil and ground, and surface water pollution. Over the years, illegal mining has been a subject of discussion due to it perceived implications now and in the future with respect to environmental sustainability and agricultural land management ( Kwadwo et al., 2016 ; Apollo et al., 2017 ; Mwakesi et al., 2020 ; Christmann, 2021 ). To determine the implication of illegal mining on the environment and its replicate effects on climate-smart agriculture, residents were asked to indicate the environmental effects of illegal mining on their environment. As represented by Table 2 , 30% of the respondents reported that the activities of illegal mining have resulted in the formation of sinkholes, which initially were not present due to the absence of the mining activity. Again, 27% of the respondents revealed that illegal mining has led to the loss of the biodiversity around the study communities. Furthermore, 20% of the residents observed that the presence of illegal mining in the areas has led to the contamination of the soil, which previously was good for food crop production, and, lastly, 23% of the residents reported that illegal mining has led to ground and surface water pollution.

Table 2 . Effects of illegal mining on the environment in the Nadowli-Kaleo district.

The interview with the chiefs confirmed that illegal mining places serious threat to their environment and their agricultural land. The chiefs in all the three communities observed that, since the inception of the activities of illegal mining, it has led to the depletion of the forest cover. They added that illegal mining has resulted in loss of biodiversity around the area especially animal and mammal species that were predominant at the Black Volta river corridor, and the pollutants discharged by illegal miners destroyed microorganisms and cause loss of fauna and flora, as succinctly captured by A2:

“ My son, some years back, if my memory can still set me right, our land was forested, especially along the Black Volta corridor. Today, due to the emergence of illegal mining, the community has lost that stretch of forested land to activities of illegal mining operators” (4 June 2020)

Again, the chiefs referred to their streams and the Black Volta River where some years back served as sources of drinking water. The chiefs indicated that the high demand for water by miners in extraction, processing, and waste disposal pollutes water sources nearby and depletes freshwater supplies in the region surrounding the mine. The use of mercury for gold processing as confirmed by four of the miners during the interview indicated that the use of mercury has affected water quality. The miners reported that the use of the mercury is because it is cheap, dependable, and portable operation for concentrating and extracting gold from low-grade ores, as captured by B4.

“ Mercury is the main chemical we in extracting the gold here. They are others chemicals but they are too expensive for us with limited financial capacity. We know the environmental consequences of the chemical (referring to mercury) but we cannot also stop using it because the alternative is not there” (4 June 2020) .

An interview with one of the officers at the EPA revealed that illegal mining in the areas has led to the formation of sinkholes as artisanal miners cleared the vegetation and dug for mineral-bearing ore. This accordingly has scarred the landscape with excavated pits and trenches, which, in turn, renders the land unsuitable for any other purpose. At the district agricultural office, one of the agricultural extension agents during the interview reported that illegal mining has caused a serious damage to the arable land with the possibility to affect food security of households who depend on farming. The officer indicated that every portion of the land of these three communities over decades were cultivable; however, over 9% of the land has been lost due to the activities of the illegal mining. In the officers own words, it was captured as follows:

“ Before the emergence of the mining activities in these communities, every part of the land was cultivable, today as we speak, there are some portions of the land you cannot grow crops” (Interviewee A5, 4 June 2020) .

The results from the respondents agreed with the literature. Illegal mining, a low-technology and labor-intensive mining activity ( Kwadwo et al., 2016 ) in Ghana, has come under serious scrutiny due to its implication on agricultural land and other livelihood sources ( Amankwah, 2013 ; Okoh, 2014 ; Ofosu et al., 2020 ; Atta and Tholana, 2021 ). Studies have found that illegal mining has scarred the landscape with excavated pits and trenches in its operation areas, which, in turn, renders the land unsuitable for any other purpose ( Ofosu et al., 2020 ; Atta and Tholana, 2021 ). Studies have also observed that the activities of illegal mining has contributed to water pollution due to the high demand for water by miners in extraction, processing, and waste disposal ( Amankwah, 2013 ; Ndabi, 2017 ). From the study, the results indicated that the activities of mining in the study communities have resulted to environmental resources depletion. As reported by the residents of the three communities, the MOFA, and the EPA, illegal mining in the areas has resulted to unnecessary competition between agriculturalists and the miners for land. The activities of illegal mining will continue unabated because of its importance to the mining operators and communities ( Hilson et al., 2013 ; Kwadwo et al., 2016 ; Obeng et al., 2019 ; Yamarak and Parton, 2021 ). In fact, the literature has observed illegal mining as livelihood diversification ( Hilson et al., 2013 ; Kwadwo et al., 2016 ) and argued that the formalization of mining sector will do people good ( Kwadwo et al., 2016 ). Although this study completely agreed with their proposal, it is also important that we do not create much room for activities of illegal gold mining such that sustainable agricultural activities have to compromise.

Illegal Mining and Its Environmental Implications for Climate-Smart Agriculture in Nadowli-Kaleo District

Climate-smart agricultural practices adopted by respondents.

As part of the assessment of the implication of illegal mining on climate-smart agriculture, Figure 2 presents climate-smart agricultural practices that are engaged by the communities. From the assessment of the climate-smart practices, the study observed that smallholder farmers have specific climate-smart agricultural practices for soil, water, and land management.

Figure 2 . Climate-smart practices adopted by residents of the study communities.

For soil management, specifically, 66% of the respondents reported that application or use of domestic waste/manure for improved soil fertility for improved crop productivity was dominant, whereas 34% indicated that they do not use the practice. Again, 64% of the farmers also reported that they practice terracing, whereas 36% of them indicated that they do not practice terracing on the farmlands to maintain soil fertility. For crop rotation as climate-smart agriculture practice to soil management, 78% of them reported that they are involved in the practice, whereas 12% held a contrast view. Soil management has been observed to play a critical role in sustainable agriculture. Earlier studies have found that, to improve soil quality for improved food systems, application of manure, compositing, terracing, and crop rotation or fallowing are real ingredients to support the process ( Maguza-Tembo et al., 2017 ; Nyasimi et al., 2017 ). Maguza-Tembo et al. (2017) on the determinants and impact of climate-smart agriculture technology adoption on the welfare of smallholder farmers in Malawi reported that the adoption of manure application, crop rotation, and terracing by the farmers has aided in sustaining the fertility of soil.

In addition, the assessment of water management practices in response to the changing climate revealed that 42% of the respondents revealed they irrigate their farms, whereas 58% indicated that they did not irrigate their farms. For terracing to ensure water percolation and retention, 64% of the respondents indicated that the practice is an old one among them. Lastly, for land management, the assessment revealed that 88% of the respondents indicated that planting of early resistant crop varieties was highest among them in response to the changing climate system, whereas 12% indicated that they did not adopt planting of drought resistant crop varieties. For terracing to ensure land management, 64% indicated that the practice has been with them for long, whereas 12% indicated that they did not adopt the practice. Farm level irrigation and adoption of early maturing crop varieties are important strategies to support climate change adaptation ( Yiridomoh et al., 2020 ; Angom et al., 2021 ). In a systematic review of climate-smart agricultural practices among smallholder farmers in Aravalli district, Gujarat, India, Angom et al. (2021) observed that farm level irrigation and planting of earlier maturing crop varieties have helped the farmers to put their land and water into good use for sustained agricultural activities. This implies that these climate-smart agricultural activities in Ghana must be promoted for sustainable environment and agriculture.

Relationship Between Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices and Soil, Water, and Land Management for Activities of Farming

To establish the relationship between climate-smart agricultural practices and soil, water, and land management, the results as represented by Table 3 revealed that crop rotation/fallowing was strongly associated with soil management at 1% with *p-value 3.891. In addition, the use of domestic/manure and terracing as climate-smart agricultural practices was significant with soil management at 5% with p-values 4.218 and 2.197, respectively. Irrigation of crops and terracing of farm plots as climate-smart practices were significantly associated with water management at 5% with p-values 3.021 and 2.971, respectively. Finally, planting of earlier maturing crop varieties and terracing were significantly associated with land management at 1 and 5% with p-values 5.180 and 3.017, respectively. Earlier studies have found that the use of domestic waste, terracing, and crop rotation/fallowing have promising qualities to improve soil quality for activities of farming ( Partey et al., 2018 ; Andrieu et al., 2020 ; Mensah et al., 2020 ). The study of Andrieu et al. (2020) on mapping favorable zones for uptake of climate-smart agricultural practices in West Africa reported that crop rotation as a climate-smart practice has the potential to support sustainable agriculture through improved soil fertility. Other studies have found that sustainable land management practices such as terracing could support sustainable food production and food systems ( Issahaku and Abdulai, 2020 ; Mensah et al., 2020 ; Angom et al., 2021 ; Waaswa et al., 2021 ). The study of Waaswa et al. (2021) on climate-smart agriculture dissemination pathways among smallholder potato farmers in Kenya reported that crop rotation, compositing, terracing, and irrigation have helped improve the quality of soil, water, and land for agricultural activities. Climate-smart agricultural practices are known to contribute to achieving sustainable development through improved sustainable food systems. This implies that climate-smart agriculture need to be prioritized and promoted especially in developing economies to assist farmers meet their households food need.

Table 3 . Relationship between climate-smart agricultural practices and water, land, and soil management.

Implication of Environmental Effects of Illegal Mining to Climate-Smart Agriculture

Soil, water, and land management are central to climate-smart agriculture in northern Ghana ( Center for Scientiftic and Industrial Research, 2017 ; Issahaku and Abdulai, 2020 ). Traditional soil, water, and land management practices adopted by smallholder farmers (to improve soil fertility and water moisture content) such as use of domestic waste/manure on farm lands, terracing to ensure soil retention and water percolation, and crop rotation/land fallowing to maintain soil fertility and irrigation are under a serious threat. Application of organic domestic waste/manure has noted for their importance; improved soil fertility, structure, and soil moisture retention ( Maguza-Tembo et al., 2017 ; Nyasimi et al., 2017 ; Partey et al., 2018 ; Waaswa et al., 2021 ). Terracing is noted for its water conservation and soil erosion reduction especially farmlands that are located on steep slopes (see Figure 3 ). Crop rotation/land fallowing helps reduce incidences of pests and diseases of crops and improve soil structure and soil fertility through nitrogen fixing crops ( Maguza-Tembo et al., 2017 ; Nyasimi et al., 2017 ; Angom et al., 2021 ; Waaswa et al., 2021 ).

Figure 3 . Terracing as climate-smart agricultural practice identified in all the four study communities. Terracing is one of the oldest methods of managing soil and water—an agricultural practice, which involves collecting surface runoff water (thus increasing the infiltration and controlling water erosion known from ancient history) to transform landscape in hilly or mountainous regions or areas. Terracing is important for its considerable reduction in soil and water erosion, thus, if correctly planned, constructed, and properly maintained. However, terracing, if not properly maintained, could cause land degradation.

Although these practices are sound consistent to promote climate-smart agriculture, the results of the study suggest that the activities of illegal mining have had great implication on agriculture. Thus, illegal mining contests for agriculture space, and such contest affects the livelihood of people engage in agriculture. For instance, the formation of sinkholes as reported by the respondents due to illegal gold mining makes the land and soil unproductive and, therefore, affects agricultural food production. The scarcity of the land for agricultural activities due to competition from illegal mining will also affect traditional crop rotation and fallowing ( Ndabi, 2017 ; Ofosu et al., 2020 ; Atta and Tholana, 2021 ). For instance, at Nanga, the chief reported the following:

“ Our farming and food security is under serious threat due to activities of mining. For the past 10 years, it has become extremely difficult to practice farm rotation or fallowing which is one of our traditional farming practices to replenish our deteriorated soil fertility. This is due to competition for land by miners and food crop farmers. Two year ago, I got to my only farmland and saw it vandalize by these miners. As I speak with you, I have to beg for land from other families every year to farm. How then do I practice climate smart agriculture like farm rotation or land fallowing?” (Interviewee A1, 4 June 2020)

Furthermore, the activities of illegal mining in the area have accounted for soil and water contamination and give rise to water turbidity as reported by the residents, the miners, the Mineral Commission, and the EPA and through the reconnaissance field survey of the researcher. What that means is that the high turbidity levels will affect primary productivity with consequence effect on the life of biodiversity ( Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005 ; Opschoor, 2007 ; Ndabi, 2017 ). Thus, if the biodiversity depletes due to activities of illegal mining, then it will affect the services of the ecosystem such as provisioning, regulatory, and supporting ( Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005 ). Again, water and soil contamination may constraint irrigation activities in the study communities, which is recognized as one of the most reliable and transformed ways of responding to the changing climate system. For instance, at Charikpong, the chief reported the following:

“ Our few streams are completely contaminated with mercury and other chemicals. Our main river (The Black Volta River) is under serious threat of pollution. We cannot collect and drink water from the few streams around us nor use the water to irrigate our farms. This has made it very difficult for some of us who undertake dry season gardening to supplement our already diminishing farm produce” (Interviewee A2, 4 June 2020) .

Agriculture must undergo a major transformation to meet the challenges of food security, reducing poverty while responding to the changing climate system. Water and land are likely to present the greatest challenges on the food supply side, given the diminishing carrying capacity of arable land and water resources ( Amankwah, 2013 ; Adiyah, 2014 ; Poku, 2016 ). This is because many of the smallholder farmers and pastoralists that form the backbone of agriculture in northern Ghana are utilizing a degraded environment partly due to illegal mining. The ecosystems that provide healthy surface water and groundwater as well as food, fodder, and fiber are fast deteriorating in the Nadowli-Kaleo district due to illegal mining ( Prosper and Guan, 2015 ; Environmental protection agency, 2016 ; Ghana News Agency, 2018 ). With these challenges, agriculture cannot proceed as a business-as-usual manner. Studies have reported on the devastating effect of activities of illegal mining on agricultural land to include conversion of agriculture lands for its operations ( Schueler et al., 2011 ; Environmental protection agency, 2016 ). Agriculture and its activities need quality soil, water, and land resources to thrive well. Although these are prerequisite for sustainable agriculture, due to the emergence of illegal gold mining in the area, known agricultural practices in response to the already changing climate have been affected.

Agriculture remains the beacon of the economy of Ghana, and its development has serious implications for poverty reduction and food security in Northern Ghana. It is oblivious that mining do not contribute to the economy of Ghana. The argument here is its dreadful consequences on sustainable agriculture and food systems due to its detrimental effects on the environment that support climate-smart agriculture. The study aim was to investigate illegal gold mining and the environmental implication on climate-smart agriculture in the Upper West Region of Ghana. The study found that the activities of illegal mining have resulted in formation of sinkholes, contamination of soil, ground, and surface water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The study further revealed that known agricultural practices such as use of domestic waste and manure, terracing, crop rotation/land fallowing, irrigation of crops, and planting of early resistant crop varieties have been affected by the activities of illegal gold mining in the area with the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices remains extremely difficult. In Ghana and other developing countries, key issues threatening food security and sustainable agriculture are linked invariably to land use. Soil degradation, water quality, and biodiversity all have a land use components that affect activities of farmers, and land use planning with an agricultural lens will help protect farmland, farmers, and their livelihood and, at the same time, ensure environmental sustainability through improved soil fertility and water management. The author of this paper states that conscious efforts by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and its subsidiary agencies and departments are needed to sustain the ban on illegal gold mining with intensified supervision and monitoring while a systematic scheme involving relevant stakeholders is developed and implemented to ban illegal mining in Ghana completely. Again, there is the need for the Mineral Commission of Ghana together with the district assemblies and traditional authorities to prepare short- to medium-term training programs to continuous to disseminate the impact of illegal gold mining activities on the environment and sustainable agriculture and food systems. The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the Ministries of Food and Agriculture need to engage more with relevant stakeholders including academics, non-governmental organizations, researchers, the Parliament of Ghana, traditional authorities, and youth groups to work at better regulations of the mining activity to protect the environment and support sustainable climate-smart agricultural production in Ghana. Finally, The MOFA needs to develop an approach to support the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices by smallholder farmers to meet the food demand of their households.

Strengths and Limitations of the Study

The study was a single case study using Nadowli-kaleo district. Including other districts, especially those in the southern Ghana, would have provided some more evidence on illegal gold mining and the implications of their activities on climate-smart agriculture in Ghana. Hence, policy decisions with respect to promoting climate-smart agriculture may be limited to the case study area. However, with limited studies of this caliber in the region and Ghana, the study would provide a perfect first-hand information on activities of illegal gold mining and climate-smart agriculture in a region known to have high indices of poverty and highly vulnerable to climate change. Going forward as a country, it will serve us better, if a more comprehensive study covering all the mining communities in Ghana is under similar investigation to help roll out policies, programs, and projects that are more detailed on climate-smart agriculture for sustainable food systems and production.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary materials, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

Ethics Statement

Ethical review and approval was not required for this study with human participants, in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge the respondents for the information. We also wish to thank all the field assistance for their good work during the fieldwork.

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Keywords: illegal mining, environment management, environmental sustainability, climate-smart agriculture, food systems

Citation: Yiridomoh GY (2021) “Illegal” Gold Mining Operations in Ghana: Implication for Climate-Smart Agriculture in Northwestern Ghana. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 5:745317. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2021.745317

Received: 21 July 2021; Accepted: 08 November 2021; Published: 08 December 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Yiridomoh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Gordon Yenglier Yiridomoh, yiridomoh@gmail.com

This article is part of the Research Topic

Planning for Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems

Illegal Mining

Organized Crime, Corruption, and Ecocide in a Resource-Scarce World

© 2020
Yuliya Zabyelina 0 ,
Daan van Uhm 1

Department of Political Science, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY), New York, USA

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Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Provides a much-needed examination of organized crime, corruption and environmental harm in the mining and extractive industries
Discusses the consequences of illegal mining, including violence, human exploitation, loss of economic revenue, and ecocide
Analyzes the diversification of organized crime into the mining industry
Covers the interplay between informal mining and organized crime and gold- and diamond-based money laundering
Evaluates existing responses to illegal mining from various stakeholders

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Table of contents (19 chapters)

Front matter, introduction, the new eldorado: organized crime, informal mining, and the global scarcity of metals and minerals.

Yuliya Zabyelina, Daan van Uhm

Why Organized Crime Seeks New Criminal Markets

Jay S. Albanese

The Queer Ladder of Social Mobility: Illegal Enterprise in the Anthracite Mining Region of Pennsylvania in the Interwar Decades (1917–1945)

Robert Schmidt

Organized Crime in the Mining Sector

Links between artisanal and small-scale gold mining and organized crime in latin america and africa.

Livia Wagner, Marcena Hunter

The Diversification of Organized Crime into Gold Mining: Domination, Crime Convergence, and Ecocide in Darién, Colombia

Daan van Uhm

Where the Metal Meets the Flesh: Organized Crime, Violence, and the Illicit Iron Ore Economy in Mexico’s Michoacán State

Fausto Carbajal Glass

Diamond Mining, Organized Crime, and Corruption

Dina Siegel

Warlords and Their Black Holes: The Plunder of Mining Regions in Afghanistan and the Central African Republic by Organized Crime

Kimberley L. Thachuk

Organized Crime and Informal Mining

Shadowy deals with “sunny stone”: organized crime, informal mining, and the illicit trade of amber in ukraine.

Yuliya Zabyelina, Nicole Kalczynski

Between Informality and Organized Crime: Criminalization of Small-Scale Mining in the Peruvian Rainforest

Eva Bernet Kempers

When Gold Speaks, Every Tongue Is Silent: The Thin Line Between Legal, Illegal, and Informal in Peru’s Gold Supply Chain

Naomi van der Valk, Lieselot Bisschop, René van Swaaningen

Migrant Workers, Artisanal Gold Mining, and “More-Than-Human” Sousveillance in South Africa’s Closed Gold Mines

Matthew Nesvet

Digging into the Mining Subculture: The Dynamics of Trafficking in Persons in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining of Peru’s Madre de Dios

Dolores Cortés-McPherson

Mining, Corruption, and Money Laundering

Crude oil’s ugly sister: the political-criminal nexus and corruption inside nigeria’s solid minerals and mining sector.

Sheelagh Brady

Min(d)ing Corruption in International Investment Arbitration

Vasilka Sancin, Domen Turšič
political sociology
environmental law
green criminology
natural resources
human rights
corporate crime
gold mining
forced labour
money laundering

About this book

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Yuliya Zabyelina

About the editors

Bibliographic information.

Book Title : Illegal Mining

Book Subtitle : Organized Crime, Corruption, and Ecocide in a Resource-Scarce World

Editors : Yuliya Zabyelina, Daan van Uhm

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46327-4

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan Cham

eBook Packages : Law and Criminology , Law and Criminology (R0)

Copyright Information : The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

Hardcover ISBN : 978-3-030-46326-7 Published: 06 October 2020

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-030-46329-8 Published: 07 October 2021

eBook ISBN : 978-3-030-46327-4 Published: 05 October 2020

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XXXVII, 573

Number of Illustrations : 19 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour

Topics : Critical Criminology , Environmental Policy , Organized Crime , Crime Control and Security , Geoengineering, Foundations, Hydraulics , Civil Law

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Illegal Gold Mining Boom Threatens Cocoa Farmers (And Your Chocolate)

Ghana, one of the world's biggest producers of cocoa beans, is facing a crisis around dangerous and dirty galamsey, or informal, mining—which experts warn could derail its agriculture sector.

Obuasi, Ghana — Kwaku Asare grabbed his machete and trekked through the bush to his cocoa farm—through winding pathways and hills, past ominous pits of muddy water, and underneath the low-hanging canopy of dried cocoa leaves. But the trees were bare. A few rotting cocoa pods littered the ground, while other stunted pods refused to ripen on the branches.

“When the Chinese came, they told me that my plants were not yielding anymore because there was so much gold under the soil,” Asare said. After a few years of low production, he sold his 14 acres to a group of small-scale gold miners, also called galamsey miners, with a Chinese sponsor. The money is gone now and Asare’s land is poisoned.

Kwaku Asare of Denkyira Asikuma, Ghana, visits the former cocoa farm he sold to galamsey gold miners. He's among the growing number of cocoa farmers seeing their production replaced with mining, which is often only temporary but leaves permanent scars.

Kwaku Asare’s story is not uncommon in Denkyira Asikuma, a small farming village nestled amongst cocoa plantations outside of Dunkwa in Ghana’s Central region. At least 30 cocoa farmers in the village have sold their land to miners who quickly excavated, pumped in water and chemicals, and abandoned their pits when the work was done or when soldiers chased them away.

Gold mining has always been a part of Ghana, from the ornate jewelry of the Ashanti kings to British colonization. In the last several years, however, largely unregulated galamsey mining has ramped up—due in part to Chinese investors who bring sophisticated equipment and a lagging economy that makes the prospect of striking gold too sweet to pass. These often illegal operations can result in contaminated water, deforestation , and a rise in violent crime. ( Learn more about the real price of gold .)

Illegal gold mining in Ghana further exacerbates a volatile cocoa market. In 2014, experts predicted a global cocoa shortage by 2020. However, cocoa production statistics have been unpredictable since then, according to the most recent data from the 2015-16 growing season. That year, there was a cocoa surplus , attributed to a prolonged rainy season. Recently, the price of the bean has plummeted to historic lows on global commodity exchanges— negatively impacting the profits of West African cocoa farmers.

In 2011, Ghana produced a record-setting amount of cocoa, weighing in at over one million tonnes . Since then, as illegal mining steadily ramped up, cocoa production has trended downwards, with a drop to 740,000 tonnes in 2015.

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“Galamsey is the biggest threat to cocoa production,” Pomasi Ismael, the chairman of a cocoa buyers collective, told local media recently.

Several other factors have been blamed for the volatile nature of the cocoa market, most notably climate change , which can usher in an extremely dry season one year and excessive rain the next. Deforestation from illegal gold mining may speed up such effects.

Working in galamsey gold mining pits—like this one in Diewuosu, Ghana—can be dangerous. Erosion and runoff of toxic material can poison surrounding areas.

Gold and cocoa are both integral parts of Ghana’s economy and national identity, yet the two resources’ coexistence has contradictions. Cocoa was first planted in Ghana in the 1870s, and the former Gold Coast colony became the largest exporter of the chocolate-making beans for the next century, until neighboring Ivory Coast surpassed them. Two decades after the arrival of cocoa, the legal Obuasi gold mine was founded. Closely regulated, the big industrial operation transformed a small Ashanti village into a cosmopolitan city with tennis courts and golf clubs. For decades, miners toiled underground in the sprawling complex. Today, the mine is no longer producing gold and galamsey miners have quickly filled the void, wiping away cocoa farms in their path.

Ghana’s government has struggled to balance the economic boon of small-scale mining with environmental and safety protections. The Small-Scale Gold Mining Act of 1989 implemented a system for obtaining small-scale mining licenses. These initial galamsey workers were groups of nine or less artisanal miners working by hand to dig, pan, and wash gold. In 2006, an updated law stipulated that only Ghanaian citizens could receive mining licenses and required permits from the country’s Environmental Protection Agency and Forestry Commission. Although some small-scale mining operations therefore do have legal permits, many of them don’t, and many partake in illegal activities such as employing foreigners or crews of hundreds, using mercury, or using heavy machinery. To many in the country, the term galamsey has thus now become synonymous with criminality.

The Conflict’s Ground Zero

The single-lane highway from Obuasi to Dunkwa is lined on both sides with a string of excavating machines and gold-washing outposts. Immediately after passing the town’s tollbooth, signs advertising gold dealers and mining equipment—in both English and Chinese—crowd the streets, vastly outnumbering the fading billboards for cocoa fertilizer.

Dunkwa sits on the Offin River, a tributary of the Pra River, which is one of the largest river systems in Ghana. In the last few years, these water bodies have turned an alarming yellow color, due to chemical wastewater from illegal gold mining, unrecognizable from their former resilient blue.

The area covered by the Pra River Basin—including parts of Ghana’s Central, Western, and Ashanti regions—is the country’s cocoa heartland. It also holds the highest concentration of gold deposits. Ghana is the world’s second largest cocoa exporter, contributing 20 percent of the world’s supply. More than 70 percent of cocoa beans come from West Africa.

It’s unlikely that Kwaku Asare’s cocoa farm was spoiled due to the gold underneath its soil, as the miners claimed. It’s much more likely that his cocoa crops were negatively affected by the increase of galamsey activities in the area, which can poison waterways with heavy metals and chemicals like lead, mercury, and cyanide, as well as unpredictable rainy and dry seasons attributed to climate change.

The Mercury Connection

Over 5,000 people work at the Adumanu galamsey site, most of them without legal permits, according to Joseph Owusu Sekyere, who owns several pits. Just a few miles outside of Obuasi, the yellow holes filled with brackish water are ubiquitous.

Massive amounts of stones are crushed into sand and washed at these sites, which take water from nearby river systems and deposit wastewater back into them.

“We use mercury to get the gold,” Sekyere said. “I’ve heard of people using cyanide and other chemicals to process stones, too.”

In 2014, Ghana was one of 18 countries to sign the Minamata Convention on Mercury at the UN General Assembly, with the intention of minimizing mercury exposure to the population. However, mercury use in galamsey mining continues. The Minerals Commission of Ghana focuses on maintaining the environmental standards of larger companies, while small-scale operations often fall through the cracks. Last year, the government declared a “war on galamsey”—arresting a few miners and making showy displays of destroying some equipment—but many operations continue.

Mercury exposure is especially harmful to children and teenagers, who often work at galamsey sites and handle the liquid metal with their bare hands. Mercury poisoning also affects people who live near galamsey sites through drinking water and fish consumption. Neurological disorders are associated with mercury poisoning, and it is particularly harmful to pregnant women. Additionally, it can wipe out entire plant populations and stunt crop growth, including cocoa.

Years ago, urban residents traveled to the villages surrounding Obuasi and Dunkwa for fresh fish and bountiful produce. Nowadays, people in Obuasi say many villagers are forced to come to town to buy food because they can’t sustain their farms.

Deadly Work

Further into the galamsey site at Adumanu, past a makeshift market and through a forest, the landscape is pockmarked with holes. They are less than three feet wide but stretch up to 2,000 feet into the belly of the Earth. The dangers of mercury poisoning are often not the most immediate concerns here.

“The first day I went underground I thought that I wouldn’t come out again. I cried the whole time,” said Boakye Andrews, a galamsey miner. “Look at it this way: 10 or 15 MTN poles [cellphone towers] stuck on top of each other. That’s how deep we go.”

A professional miner drives past a statue dedicted to his trade in Obuasi. A massive, historic mine passes under the whole town and has long been the basis for its economy. The legal mine has struggled in recent years but plans to expand operations again soon.

Five hundred or more workers descend into the Adumanu pits daily. They chisel stones and bring up heavy sacks through an assembly line. Some workers stay underground for a few days, others for over a month, bringing along water, rice, and cooking oil. Frequently, galamsey workers die underground due to flooding or unsafe use of dynamite.

“Anytime somebody dies [underground], the person will blast into pieces,” Andrews said. “If you are about 20 and five die on the spot, you still keep on working because the gold has to come up to the surface. So you ignore the accident and keep working. He’s dead. You can’t do anything about it.”

Although news reports of galamsey accidents, often with fatalities in the teens, were frequent throughout last year, the true death toll remains unknown. In 2010, one mining accident near Dunkwa killed an estimated 150 miners. Most deaths are not officially recorded because family members are ashamed or worried about prosecution.

Kofi Baffour Domfeh is one of many workers in the massive, and legal, Obusai mine.

Andrews started working in galamsey when he was 19, almost a decade ago, but was raised with mining long before that. His father worked at the big Obuasi mine, then called AngloGold Ashanti, in its heyday. He passed away when Andrews was eight years old.

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“I grew up in Obuasi,” he said. “When I was young, every time I saw them doing this galamsey work I said ah...what’s wrong with them? When it came to my turn, I realized that it wasn’t their fault, because they were not getting help from anywhere.”

Violent Occupation

The Obuasi mine, which has changed ownership several times since its founding in 1897, has always been the lifeblood of the city. Until the late 2000s, Obuasi was one of the most affluent towns in Ghana, boasting a sports club with swimming pool, tennis courts, and cricket pitch, as well as a first-class hospital and school—all funded privately by the mine. The town was cosmopolitan and diverse. The children of European mine workers attended the same schools as Ghanaians.

Boakye Andrews, a former galamsey gold miner, spoke about his experiences spending weeks underground in a dark hole and witnessing countless friends die in dangerous blasts.

Young people like Andrews had always assumed they would work for the company in some capacity, just as their parents did. However, in 2014, AngloGold Ashanti suspended gold production in Obuasi due to financial constraints, laying off more than 90 percent of its workforce and spending $210 million on severance packages. The entire economy of the city fell into decline. Signaling a possible upturn, this winter, AngloGold Ashanti announced that they would resume gold production at the Obuasi mine in 2019. But there is a steep climb to rebuild Obuasi's former economic glory.

In the time since the mine's decline, some former miners turned their skills to galamsey work, even if they couldn’t secure legal permits. One example is Owusu Sekyere, the pit owner at Adumanu, who had worked for AngloGold for over 20 years.

In January 2016, illegal miners stormed the AngloGold Ashanti Obuasi mine, capturing control of the intricate tunnel network that snakes under the city, a mile below the surface. On the second day of the incursion, an AngloGold senior manager was killed. The Army was eventually called in, which clashed with the miners for weeks. By the end of the occupation, at least 175 galamsey miners had died.

“It’s common knowledge in the country… we all know that the illegal mining activity has been on the increase,” said Eric Asubonteng, the managing director of AngloGold Ashanti Obuasi mine.

A man melts raw gold stones into a metallic form in Obuassi, which is a hub for metal-related businesses.

While AngloGold Ashanti’s mining activities were under strict regulations from Ghana’s EPA and Minerals Commission, illegal miners often go unregulated, he said.

“Our impact on the environment is not something we should be putting in the same box or bracket as the illegal miners,” Asubonteng said. He added that even water discharged from the underground mine has to get treated. “But we don’t have any way or any approach to regulate the illegal miners. Then all our efforts come to nil.”

In the course of their occupation, illegal miners damaged water treatment and electrical infrastructure in AngloGold’s Obuasi mine, setting them back at least a year in feasibility studies and much further in terms of investor confidence, according to Asubonteng. This was critical at a time when the mine was looking for new investors to resume full operations—which could help revive the economy in Obuasi.

A month after the invasion, AngloGold Ashanti surrendered 60 percent of its land concession to the government of Ghana. Some of that land, already identified to be rich in gold, was officially leased to galamsey miners in an effort to regulate their operations. It remains unclear how environmental regulations are being followed on these newly legal sites, although anecdotal evidence suggests bribes may be favored over inspections.

A galamsey miner checks a water pump in a river. The industry has been blamed for releasing toxic materials like mercury and cyanide into streams.

Looking Ahead

Meanwhile, members of COCOBOD, Ghana’s government-owned singular cocoa exporter, and cocoa farmer unions have publicly criticized galamsey as the single biggest threat to cocoa farming in the country. They point out that cocoa exports have long been closely tied to the country’s economic status, so much so that cocoa beans are emblazoned on its currency.

“What’s happening in terms of illegal mining in Ghana—let’s think beyond Obuasi—is something that if we are not careful will get to a point that we will lose it totally,” Asubonteng said. “The damage caused by illegal miners in terms of environment, in terms of child labor, in terms of the impact on health of communities, the impact of law and order is significant.

“It has already impacted us, it’s not something we’ll have to wait till ten years before we see the impact.”

Ghana’s galamsey crisis has yet to affect global chocolate prices in a noticeable way, but the future implications may be seen in the current reality of Kwaku Asare’s cocoa farm. His 14 acres of once-vibrant cocoa trees, and that of at least 30 farmers in his village and exponentially more farmers in the region, have been replaced with scars on the Earth.

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A Closer Look at Colombia’s Illegal, Artisanal, and Small-Scale Mining

Photo: LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images

Commentary by Ryan C. Berg , Henry Ziemer , and Arianna Kohan

Published December 20, 2021

Introduction

Throughout the Colombian Amazon, a region rich in biodiversity and natural resources, local communities and the environment have come under siege by criminal actors engaged in illegal mining. At the center of this new wave of violence and environmental degradation is the rush to secure mining revenues. Skyrocketing gold prices have made control over the production and sale of the metal an increasingly lucrative business, with one ounce of gold fetching nearly twice the price of an ounce of cocaine, a product also trafficked by criminal organizations. In Colombia, illegal mining manifests as a tangled web comprised of local production, export, and smuggling from neighboring Venezuela. Revenues from these various operations fuel guerrilla groups like the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the dissident members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which increasingly rely on gold to fill their coffers.

The human costs of illegal mining are varied in nature but alike in the suffering they cause. Miners, often coerced from local Indigenous communities, labor for many hours for little to no pay, prevented from leaving under penalty of death. Sex trafficking has exploded in order to supply brothels in illicit mining camps. Meanwhile, the use of mercury to recover gold produces toxic runoff, poisoning nearby water supplies on which both people and wildlife depend.

In addition to the prevalence of illegal and criminal mining, artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a subsistence type of mining that usually supplements incomes but does not necessarily contribute to criminal enterprises. In other words, ASM may occur without a permit or license from the state, but the activity is not conducted under the auspices of a criminal organization. Many people participate in small-scale gold mining as a means of supplementing their income while engaging in a variety of other economic activities. Miners engaged in ASM are not employed by mining companies, sometimes engaging in this activity seasonally to substitute their income during slow growing seasons. This type of informal mining could serve as a tool for economic advancement in the region if regulated and combined with the right government policies. In its current state, however, the informality of the mining sector creates additional vulnerabilities for miners engaged in ASM, who find it difficult to sell their products at market value and often face exploitation at the hands of criminals and armed groups.

The mineral resources found in the Colombian Amazon have great potential to be accelerants of economic growth and deliver benefits for the people of these regions. However, identifying the correct policy responses requires first disentangling the networks of coercion, violence, and smuggling that currently dominate much of the mining landscape.

Illegal Mining in Colombia

The increase in global demand for natural resources and the related rise in gold prices have fueled illegal mining in Colombia, resulting in significant security concerns, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation. In fact, gold has become so profitable that it has surpassed cocaine as the main source of revenue for criminal organizations and armed groups in Colombia. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, illegal mining operations in the country span over 64,000 hectares , with activities taking place in 970 identified locations . In 2020, an estimated 69 percent of Colombia’s gold was mined illegally, up 3 percent from the previous year. For mining to be considered legal in Colombia, miners must formalize their operations with environmental and technical requirements set by the government; however, the bureaucratic red tape and high cost associated with formalization leads many to continue mining operations without the proper permits and environmental and technical standards.

Neighboring Venezuela’s variegated crises have also had important spillover effects for Colombia. Of the roughly 230 illegal mines recorded in Colombia in 2020, approximately 74 are located along the Colombia-Venezuela border. Much of the gold mined in Venezuela both wittingly and unwittingly finds its way into Colombian gold exports , making it difficult to track as it moves through various markets. A complex “l ayering ” process allows gold mined illegally in Venezuela to be passed off as Colombian. This occurs when gold is melted down and any signs of its origins obfuscated. Criminal intermediaries may provide fraudulent purchase receipts or even fake certificates of origin, claiming the gold was produced from legal mines in Colombia. Once this product is layered, therefore, illegal gold ships around the world as legal gold exports. Gold is also easier to launder than arms or drugs, as it can be sold on the formal commodity market after being fraudulently legalized, allowing criminally mined gold to make its way into the supply chain of numerous major companies .

After the United States sanctioned the Maduro regime’s state-owned gold mining company, Minerven, in 2019, layering and smuggling operations became paramount to Maduro’s authoritarian resilience. The combination of considerable profits and less risky laundering has led the Maduro regime in Venezuela to turn to illegal mining as an alternate method of financing itself, further linking the mining activities of the two countries.

Abuses of basic human rights, including those of Indigenous populations, are common alongside illicit mining practices. Of the 64,000 hectares where illegal mining operations take place in Colombia, more than 27,000 hectares are located in Indigenous territories. These activities directly contribute to the displacement of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian populations, human and sex trafficking and labor exploitation, and the contamination of the local water supply, among other abuses. Clashes between miners and Indigenous populations are common, as locals bristle at the control criminal organizations exercise over mining operations. Miners—both those engaged in ASM and criminal mining—often labor in hazardous conditions, working long hours in contaminated, stagnant water that serves as a breeding ground for mosquitos. Venezuela, the first World Health Organization–certified country to eradicate malaria, is now witnessing a surge in malaria cases . Workers in illegal mines are often coerced into working through threats of violence or economic necessity and are routinely subject to violent treatment and repression .

Illegal mining also contributes to devastating environmental results. The use of heavy machinery significantly contributes to Colombia’s rising rates of deforestation; more than 5 percent of Colombia’s entire surface area has been deforested, and more than 68 percent of the country’s loss of vegetation occurred in areas of illegal exploitation. ASM is one of the largest global sources of mercury pollution , and mercury—technically banned in Colombia since 2018—is still commonly used in mining operations, effecting a contaminated local water supply that can be dangerous to humans and wildlife alike.

The Colombian government has implemented various initiatives aimed at increasing formalization of the gold sector to mitigate the risks of illegal mining, with mixed results. For example, the Single Registry of Mineral Traders (RUCOM) is a platform through which miners can formalize their operations, offering a channel to legalize the mining sector and prevent illegally mined gold from being funneled through legitimate mining operations. However, miners engaged in ASM find the criteria set by RUCOM to be difficult to achieve, further forcing the informal sector into operations with criminal actors. In 2016, the Colombian National Army also created the Illegal Mining Brigade that has the goal of raising awareness of the environmental damage caused by illegal mining, carrying out the government’s efforts to target criminal mining operations. This effort followed previous efforts to establish the Unit Against Natural Resources and Environmental Crimes, which, despite conducting thousands of investigations, garnered few successful prosecutions and convictions. Additionally, the National Mining Agency (ANM) is working to make public a compilation of all authorized mineral producers to increase transparency in the mining sector.

The Stakes Are Larger than Mining

The impacts of illegal mining are not confined to the human or the environmental. Illegal mining in Colombia intersects with some of the most intractable security challenges in Latin America. Both the ELN and dissident FARC groups finance their regional activities with profits derived partly from illegal mining. There is mounting evidence that the Maduro regime is partnering with the ELN and dissident FARC groups, not only providing a permissive environment for their operations, but actively seeking to wrest control over the gold trade from the Colombian criminal groups that have traditionally controlled it. This partnership is mutually beneficial—it permits the Maduro regime to profit from illegal gold mining, layered into legal operations, while opening new revenue streams to proxy groups that work to destabilize Colombia, its traditional regional rival. It is not hyperbole to say that the entire peace process in Colombia could be at risk if the ELN and dissident FARC groups are permitted to continually cross the border, recuperate, rearm, and collect money that enables them to lengthen their insurgency and wear down an already weary population.

Beyond criminal groups, the existence of illegal mining impacts the Maduro regime’s security and survival. The regime reportedly gave ruling party governors the ability to manage strategic mines within their state and divvy up the largesse to rapacious party officials as a means of maintaining control and establishing deeply entrenched political patronage networks. The spoils from these illegal operations—facilitated in part by illicit cross-border flows with Colombia—maintain regime coherence and consolidation in the face of the United States and international pressure on Maduro. The international export of illegal gold has also enmeshed the Maduro regime in a grouping of autocratic and authoritarian countries that facilitate its survival, including Russia, Turkey, Mali, and the United Arab Emirates. These relationships have entailed sophisticated work-arounds to U.S. sanctions architecture involving the loading of empty aircraft cargo holds , “ spoofing ” the locations of cargo ships, “ going dark ” on their transponders, and leveraging flags of convenience .

Local and International Responses

The overlap of informal and criminal mining means that a hardline policy seeking to prevent ASM entirely is likely to be neither effective nor conducive to regional stability or individual livelihoods. Yet mining regulations have only recently started to catch up to these realities, easing hitherto restrictions on ASM. Such efforts will help the Colombian government focus its efforts on the most devastating elements of illegal mining. This needs to be accelerated in tandem with a robust security strategy to push organized crime out of the mining sector. Colombia’s recent announcement creating a special force within the national police to tackle environmental crimes in the country, including illegal mining, is a good start.

Greater formalization of ASM is one of the tools for improving regulation in the mining sector. While Colombia has made progress in simplifying registration requirements, in order for a mining operation to obtain formal authorization from the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, it must go through an exhaustive, lengthy process beyond the capabilities of most small-scale mining operations. An expedited channel specifically for miners engaged in ASM to register easily and for little cost would be an important step toward bringing these miners into greater formality. Paired with a bolstered enforcement mechanism through RUCOM, this would allow small-scale miners to sell their products at more market-competitive rates, serving as a source of economic growth for both these small-scale miners and the Colombian economy.

Greater formalization also allows more effective government and private-sector interventions to dissuade miners from environmentally harmful practices. For instance, the Mining Federation of Chocó has proposed the creation of a system of local permits that would allow people to pursue small-scale gold mining with monitoring to ensure these processes are mercury free.

Addressing the human security dimension and deeply entrenched ties between illegal mining and criminal networks will be critical (and complementary) for a new regulatory framework to succeed. There are two main components to this security strategy. The first should be to go after existing illegal mines within Colombia, leveraging improved technologies like satellite monitoring and real-time digital reporting to quickly identify and shut down mining sites. This can be especially potent for large-scale, land-based mining operations where heavy machinery is utilized and which cannot be easily replaced if seized or destroyed. During these operations, security forces should be careful to distinguish informal miners from criminal operations and to recognize the tendency of criminal operations to disperse in response to a crackdown in one area.

The second key aspect of a security strategy must improve monitoring along Colombia’s borders. In particular, the extensive and porous border with Venezuela is a major conduit for mineral smuggling, as well as the movement of ELN and FARC dissident troops. Here there is ample opportunity for the United States to partner with the government of Colombia in sharing technical assistance and technology to improve border policing efforts. Along Colombia’s borders with Peru and Brazil, there may be more potential for regional cooperation as these countries have also worked to address illegal mining in recent years.

Finally, while internal efforts can decrease the prevalence of illegal gold mining, a robust multilateral response is needed to tamp down on laundering and smuggling of criminal gold. The United States can help elevate the issue in international fora and bring pressure against countries and corporations that have been complicit in purchasing smuggled gold. International bodies should also review standards and propagate best practices for corporations looking to ensure their gold sources are ethically and legally acquired in the interest of cleaning up supply chains.

Gold mining is essential to the livelihoods of thousands throughout Colombia and, if regulated effectively, can become an industry with great potential. However, doing so requires a sustained, multilateral effort to bring miners engaged in ASM into the formal sector and defeat and dismantle the criminal networks that fill their coffers with gold extracted from coerced, unsafe, and environmentally devastating mining practices.

Ryan C. Berg is a senior fellow with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Arianna Kohan is a program coordinator with the CSIS Americas Program. Henry Ziemer is a program coordinator and research assistant with the CSIS Americas Program.

This commentary is made possible through the generous support of Conservation X Labs.

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

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The Dangerous Effects of Illegal Mining

Illegal mining has been ravaging our planet for decades. Not only is illegal mining riskier from a safety perspective for those who choose to participate, but it encourages reckless behavior and leads to outcomes that have negative long-term consequences.

Illicit mining activities don’t follow the same provisions that legal mining does. While some may argue that all mining has dangerous consequences, the implications of illegal mining are much worse.

Negative effects of illegal mining on the environment and human health

Most mining activities are extremely high-risk for not only the environment, but also those who do the actual physical labor.

The environmental risks of mining include:

the formation of sinkholes
the contamination of soil and groundwater
loss of biodiversity
chemical leakages

Some of these impacts have long-term consequences, such as the contamination of soil and groundwater , that can take years to rectify.

In addition to environmental risks, mining activities in general are also very dangerous to operate. Not only do miners have to sometimes travel to or live in remote regions, they often also work in extenuating conditions.

They face health risks due to breathing toxic chemicals or absorbing them into the skin. Miners also have to operate heavy machinery or may be exposed to flooding, gas explosions, or cave ins.

While all of these risks exist for legal mining operations, they only increase in likelihood for illegal projects. Not only is the environmental degradation much worse, but the human risks are also far greater.

Destructive cases of illegal mining across the world

In South America, the $2.4 billion illegal gold mining industry has been destroying the Amazon and costing dozens of lives.

In Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia , illegal gold mining operations by private companies have devastated local communities.

The operations have left behind pools of cyanide and mercury, twice the size of Olympic swimming pools. In just three months, the illegal mining activities damaged the ecosystem by killing the entire fish population of the Aguita River after water-pumping machines leaked toxins into the water.

According to Colombia’s National Planning Department, Colombia now ranks second in the world for mercury pollution.

Local populations have reported health issues related to mercury poisoning such as tremors and memory loss. According to some sources, illegal mining companies often extorted the local populations by forcing them to search for gold by sending in armed groups to intimidate them. Other times, they tried to barter deals by promising to repair crippling infrastructure in the region, but instead, pillaged the region and left without keeping their word.

South America isn’t the only region that has suffered from illegal mining.

In Africa, the conflict diamond industry cost thousands of lives in the 1990’s and 2000’s. During that time, the illegal industry produced billions of dollars which were used to fund civil wars that decimated countries including Sierra Leone, Angola, Liberia, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In Sierra Leone, people were killed, threatened and mutilated in diamond villages and many people fled their homes in fear.

According to PBS Newshour, a total of 2 million people fled the country during the height of the conflict and cost the lives of roughly 120,000 people, with an additional 75,000 suffering some kind of body mutilation.

What can be done to eliminate these dangerous effects?

While the effects of illegal mining have high stakes for humanity and the environment, conscious consumerism can help curb their impact.

Because of the heavy campaigning around the conflict diamond trade, the Kimberley Process was introduced in 2003. While the process hasn’t completely decimated the illegal diamond industry, it has reduced it substantially over the last decade.

Conscious consumers can continue to buy conflict-free jewels and other precious metals, and steer clear of those with unclear origins. But unless the demand for these goods drop, the temptation for illegal mining will continue to exist, and along with it, human and environmental destruction.

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Mining and extractives / Environmental crime caused by illegal mining in Central Africa

This brief explores how national and regional responses can address the environmental impact of illegal mining in the region.

The illicit exploitation of mineral resources has long-term impacts on the environment, including formation of sinkholes, and contamination of the soil, groundwater and surface water. It also results in soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, health risks and even deaths. However, it is not regarded as environmental crime in Central Africa. This Policy Brief draws attention to the environmental harms caused by illegal mining in the region and explores how national and regional responses to the challenge can address the environmental fallouts.

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Environmental crime caused by illegal mining in central africa.

Criminalité environnementale causée par l’exploitation minière illégale en Afrique centrale

Cette analyse explore les réponses nationales et régionales face à l'impact environnemental de l'exploitation minière illégale dans la région.

A hopeful mix between governance and gold in Kenya

Rapidly established, unregulated mining in the remote north provides a test site for government efforts to clean up the industry.

L’exploitation minière illégale par des acteurs chinois complexifie la criminalité au Nigeria

Dans un pays confronté à diverses formes de criminalité, la présence de délinquants étrangers dans le secteur extractif pose un défi majeur.

Southern Province officials want illegal mining sites put to good use

T here is a need for licenses to exploit 43 illegal mines that have been identified in Southern Province, The New Times has learnt. The mines were being used by illegal miners who called themselves “Abahebyi”, loosely translated as those who risk their lives. ALSO READ: How illegal miners vandalised Rwf2bn water supply system “The illegal mines are in different districts but most of them are located in Muhanga and Kamonyi districts,” Alice Kayitesi, Southern Province Governor told The New Times. In 2023, Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board (RMB) pledged to explore the potential of the 109 areas with illegal mining and demarcate them for licensing across the country. “We held a meeting with the mining board, districts and miners. The mining board has pledged to assess our request and fast-track the licenses for those who fulfill the criteria,” she said. ALSO READ: How many illegal mines closed after fatal Huye incident? Illegal mines have caused mine accidents in different districts. Out of 89 mines, 43 are illegal in Southern Province. Mine accidents have killed at least 429 people while 272 were injured in a period of five years, a report by Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board (RMB) on the status of illegal mining and accidents shows. Mine accidents killed 60 in 2018, 84 in 2019, 71 in 2020, 61 in 2021, and 61 in 2022. ALSO READ: 20 arrested over illegal mining Kayitesi said that several measures have been put in place to tackle this issue, including the full activation of district task forces responsible for mining and quarries. These task forces will conduct regular inspections to assess the activities at these mining sites. ALSO READ: Government warns illegal miners as five die in mining accident in Ngororero These task forces are tasked with providing recommendations for improvement, discouraging improper mining practices, and taking strong measures against illegal mining activities. These efforts in Southern Province follow a tragic incident where an illegal mine collapsed in Huye District, resulting in the entrapment of six victims, including three students, within the tunnels. The Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) subsequently arrested 10 individuals believed to be connected to the illegal mining operation. Addressing illegal mining is part of the measures to modernise the mining sector and increase productivity. Rwanda's mineral export revenue in 2023 increased to more than $1.1 billion, up from the $772 million recorded in 2022, representing a growth of 43 per cent, according to the mining board. This is a step closer to achieving the government’s target of generating $1.5 billion in annual mineral export revenues by 2024. According to Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board (RMB), the growth is attributed to increased value addition, continued professionalism, greater investment in mechanisation and the strategic implementation of sustainable and responsible mining practices.

COMMENTS

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This paper provides some insights into the in extricable linkage. between sustainable development and illegal gold mining p opularly referred to as. "galamsey" and examines the effectiveness ...
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Illegal mining and trafficking of precious metals are often linked to economic crimes such as tax evasion, fraud, and corruption, by exploiting loopholes in regulatory frameworks. Due to the high profits associated with precious metals, and the often-low risks of being arrested or prosecuted, organized criminal groups are exploiting this sector
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Illegal mining is a broad term. It may be associated with subsistence mining, whereby artisanal and small-scale miners operate without a license or in contravention of the conditions of the license. It can also occur as a corporate crime. Private companies in the mining industry rarely operate without a license.
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Researchers identified 2,312 illegal mining sites in six nations, and highlighted their toxic effects. Activists fear that Brazil's new president will encourage even more mining.
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Illegal mining operations in Brazil such as the one shown here in the Yanomami Indigenous reserve pollute waterways and soil, and destroy the rainforest. Credit: João Laet/Guardian/eyevine
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Illegal gold mining is on the rise due to the lucrativeness of the non-regulated gold rush opportunities with hard consequences on sustainable agriculture and resilience food systems. As a result, this study seeks to investigate illegal gold mining and its environmental implication for climate-smart agriculture in Ghana. The study used a single ...
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Illegal Mining Fuels Human Trafficking and Environmental Destruction. Illegal mining also promotes and is associated with other crimes, including sex and labor trafficking. The lucrative nature of illegal mining in Peru and Colombia has driven the demand for forced sex and labor trafficking, particularly in Peru's Madre de Dios, Puno, and ...
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Daan van Uhm. Provides a much-needed examination of organized crime, corruption and environmental harm in the mining and extractive industries. Discusses the consequences of illegal mining, including violence, human exploitation, loss of economic revenue, and ecocide. Analyzes the diversification of organized crime into the mining industry.
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Illegal gold mining in Ghana further exacerbates a volatile cocoa market. In 2014, experts predicted a global cocoa shortage by 2020. However, cocoa production statistics have been unpredictable ...
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According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, illegal mining operations in the country span over 64,000 hectares, with activities taking place in 970 identified locations. In 2020, an estimated 69 percent of Colombia's gold was mined illegally, up 3 percent from the previous year. For mining to be considered legal in Colombia ...
Illegal mining in the Pan Amazon: an ecological disaster for
A study in Madre de Dios, Peru, found that a barren floodplain, nineteen years after the cessation of mining operations, required investments in soil reclamation and tree planting of between US ...
Illegal mining
Illegal mining is mining activity that is undertaken without state permission. Illegal mining is the extraction of precious metals without following the proper procedures to participate in legal mining activity. These procedures include permits and licenses for exploration of the land, mining and transportation. [1]
Galamsey menace: Causes, effects and solutions
Each year, illegal mining strips some 28 billion tons of material from the earth. This is more than what is removed by the natural erosion of all the earth's rivers. Worldwide, mining generates an ...
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All of Ghana's main sources of drinking water have been contaminated by illegal mining activities. Wikimedia Commons December 12, 2022 Ghana had a bad time in 2022 - 4 reads to catch up on ...
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The environmental risks of mining include: the formation of sinkholes. the contamination of soil and groundwater. loss of biodiversity. chemical leakages. Some of these impacts have long-term consequences, such as the contamination of soil and groundwater, that can take years to rectify. According to experts, it takes decades for groundwater ...
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According to. their survey between 2006 and 2018, the GDP from mining increased from 3664.73 GHS Million. to 6829.13 GHS Million. Ghana, apart from the endowment in precious minerals and metals is ...
Environmental crime caused by illegal mining in Central Africa
The illicit exploitation of mineral resources has long-term impacts on the environment, including formation of sinkholes, and contamination of the soil, groundwater and surface water. It also results in soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, health risks and even deaths. However, it is not regarded as environmental crime in Central Africa.
Southern Province officials want illegal mining sites put to good use
Addressing illegal mining is part of the measures to modernise the mining sector and increase productivity. Rwanda's mineral export revenue in 2023 increased to more than $1.1 billion, up from the ...
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Now, Trump's twin vows to "drill, baby, drill" and deport unauthorized immigrants are on a collision course in Lea County. Here, fake work papers can be bought for $250 and oil companies employ ...

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Article contents

Introduction

The Basics of Mining

Illegal Mining

Illegal Mining Versus Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining

Trafficking in Metals and Minerals

Other Serious Crimes Associated With Illegal Mining

Trafficking in Persons

Financing of Illegal Armed Groups and Terrorist Organizations

Harmful Effects of Illegal Mining on Humans, Wild Animals, and the Environment

Further Reading

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ILLEGAL MINING AS THREAT TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN GHANA: A POLITICAL ECOLOGY APPROACH

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Introduction

Review of Related Literature

Climate-Smart Agriculture and Illegal Mining

Arguments for Environmental Sustainability and Climate-Smart Agriculture in Ghana

Methods and Materials

Study Setting

Study Design

Results and Discussion

Demographic Characteristics of Respondents

Effects of Illegal Mining on the Environment in the Nadowli-Kaleo District

Illegal Mining and Its Environmental Implications for Climate-Smart Agriculture in Nadowli-Kaleo District

Relationship Between Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices and Soil, Water, and Land Management for Activities of Farming

Implication of Environmental Effects of Illegal Mining to Climate-Smart Agriculture

Strengths and Limitations of the Study

Data Availability Statement

Ethics Statement

Author Contributions

Conflict of Interest

Publisher's Note

Acknowledgments

This article is part of the Research Topic

Illegal Mining

Department of Political Science, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY), New York, USA

Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

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Table of contents (19 chapters)

Why Organized Crime Seeks New Criminal Markets

The Queer Ladder of Social Mobility: Illegal Enterprise in the Anthracite Mining Region of Pennsylvania in the Interwar Decades (1917–1945)

Organized Crime in the Mining Sector

The Diversification of Organized Crime into Gold Mining: Domination, Crime Convergence, and Ecocide in Darién, Colombia

Where the Metal Meets the Flesh: Organized Crime, Violence, and the Illicit Iron Ore Economy in Mexico’s Michoacán State

Diamond Mining, Organized Crime, and Corruption

Warlords and Their Black Holes: The Plunder of Mining Regions in Afghanistan and the Central African Republic by Organized Crime

Organized Crime and Informal Mining

Between Informality and Organized Crime: Criminalization of Small-Scale Mining in the Peruvian Rainforest

When Gold Speaks, Every Tongue Is Silent: The Thin Line Between Legal, Illegal, and Informal in Peru’s Gold Supply Chain

Migrant Workers, Artisanal Gold Mining, and “More-Than-Human” Sousveillance in South Africa’s Closed Gold Mines

Digging into the Mining Subculture: The Dynamics of Trafficking in Persons in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining of Peru’s Madre de Dios

Mining, Corruption, and Money Laundering

Min(d)ing Corruption in International Investment Arbitration

About this book

About the editors

Illegal Gold Mining Boom Threatens Cocoa Farmers (And Your Chocolate)

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The Conflict’s Ground Zero

The Mercury Connection

Deadly Work

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