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Illegal and poorly regulated small-scale gold mining, known locally as “Galamsey,” continues to inflict severe environmental damage across Ghana. In the Ashanti, Western, Eastern, and Central regions, operations have turned major rivers, such as the Pra, Ankobra, Birim, and Offin, into toxic waterways. The mercury and cyanide used in extraction flow directly into water sources that communities rely on for drinking, fishing, and irrigation.

A former senior official at Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency, George Manful, noted that the “mercury can remain in water for up to 1,000 years,” and that the water in the rivers become so turbid that it is undrinkable. In Samreboi, it is not uncommon to see farmers break down in tears after surveying their lands and realizing it is dotted with cyanide-tainted pools. Around 60% of Ghana’s water bodies are now significantly polluted. In the Western Region’s Prestea-Huni Valley and Tarkwa areas, rivers run murky brown with sediment and chemicals. Even the cocoa farmlands have suffered heavily. In fact, the Ghana Cocoa Board has recorded losses of thousands of hectares, with one farmers’ association reporting close to 1.2 million hectares of farmlands destroyed nationwide.

Bismark Owusu Nortey, Executive Director of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, stated last year that they worked on a report that showed “that close to 1.2 million hectares of farmlands have already been destroyed due to Galamsey.” He added that due to the practice, “over 500,000 individual farmers and their dependents have been denied the opportunity to use farming as an economic tool to improve their livelihoods.”

Deforestation to establish mines is equally alarming. Over 4,700 hectares of land have been lost across seven regions, damaging 34 of Ghana’s 288 forest reserves. A 2025 government-backed study found mercury in soils at Konongo Zongo averaging 56.4 ppm, well above the WHO’s 10 ppm safety threshold, with peaks hitting 1,342 ppm. The health impacts of rising kidney failure, skin diseases, and respiratory problems are mounting in such mining communities.

Government Approaches and Their Limitations

The good news about the situation is that the government of Ghana has not stood idle, as successive administrations have declared nationwide bans on small-scale mining, deployed military task forces, and created the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining. Despite all efforts, Galamsey has continued to worsen. In March earlier this year, the Ghana Coalition Against Galamsey (GCAG) issued a press release calling for President Mahama to address “weak enforcement, political interference, and widespread impunity” driving the practice. In the release, the commission highlighted the increasing destruction of forest reserves “now affecting over 50 sites, and the continued pollution of major rivers, posing significant risks to public health, biodiversity, and water security.”

What followed was that legislation was toughened. There were amendments to the Minerals and Mining Act that increased penalties to 15–25 years imprisonment and massive fines. Equipment has been seized and destroyed in raids, and mining in forest reserves has been prohibited. President Nana Akufo-Addo once declared he was “prepared to put my presidency on the line” to tackle Galamsey. In February earlier this year, President John Dramani Mahama, during the State of the Nation Address, noted that his government is intensifying prosecution “with a renewed focus on dismantling organized criminal networks behind Galamsey operations rather than targeting only the little fish low-level offenders.”

These top-down measures have shown very clear limitations. Firstly, enforcement is inconsistent and often politically influenced. Operations frequently rebound once security forces withdraw. Corruption allegations continue to persist, with reports of bribes to officials allowing miners to resume work. The bureaucratic licensing process for legal small-scale mining remains slow and costly for rural operators, pushing many toward illegality.

Martin Ayisi, head of the Minerals Commission, the mining industry regulator, acknowledged that most Galamsey gold is smuggled out, depriving the state of revenue while environmental costs mount.

The centralized approaches that have been adopted by the authorities struggle with the mobile nature of artisanal operations spread across remote areas. The military raids can provide temporary relief but rarely address the root causes of poverty, unemployment, and lack of viable alternatives in many Ghanaian rural communities.

The Case for Grassroots Regulation

What must change is the balance of power. Ghana needs a hybrid model that strengthens grassroots regulation while maintaining national standards. Traditional authorities and local communities, who hold deep knowledge of the land and customary influence, should play a formal role in licensing, monitoring, and enforcement at the district level.

Community mine consultative committees, as piloted in places like Chirano and Prestea, have already shown promise in resolving conflicts and pushing for remediation. These should be scaled up with legal authority, training, and funding. The royalties and taxes from regulated mining could flow directly into community environmental funds for mercury-free technology, land reclamation, and provision of alternative livelihoods, such as sustainable agriculture or agroforestry, for community members.

Local watch groups should be supported but not replaced by national forces, because their constant on-the-ground design could assist in reporting violations in real time. Education on safer mining techniques, including retorts and gravimetric methods, should be delivered by trusted community members, which would likely achieve higher adoption rates than any top-down campaigns. Lastly, streamlining district-level licensing and reducing associated fees would bring more operators into the formal system.

What Should Change

Ghanaian national policy must devolve real decision-making power and resources downward while setting clear environmental boundaries for the participating communities. The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, acknowledged in October last year that “decentralising the mining permitting processes will deter people from engaging in illegal mining activities.” However, this talk must translate into consistent action for viable results.

Penalties should continue to remain strong for large-scale violators and repeat offenders, but the emphasis must shift toward prevention, formalization, and restoration. There has to be greater transparency in revenue sharing to reduce incentives for illegality. Women and other marginalized voices, who often suffer the heaviest health and livelihood burdens in these conditions, need guaranteed seats in local governance structures. The human cost is visible and urgent.

Grassroots regulation here does not mean that the state should abandon its responsibility. It means recognizing that the gap between the central state and local communities will not allow them to effectively manage a problem rooted in local landscapes and livelihoods. So, by empowering communities with authority, tools, and economic alternatives, Ghana can indeed move from the cycles of crackdown and relapse it has experienced in the previous years toward lasting recovery of its rivers, forests, and farmlands.

Read the article on The Habibat Project website

Following the conclusion of the Eighth Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly on June 5, Nigeria is seeking to align its GEF-9 project proposals with new priorities on livelihoods and people-centered development, while incorporating Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) recommendations on hydrological patterns. STAP is an independent scientific advisory body to the GEF.

The Nigeria Climate Adaptation–Erosion and Watershed Project (NEWMAP-EIB), a five-year initiative designed to tackle soil erosion, land degradation, and climate vulnerability, will submit proposals to the Federal Ministry of Environment for evaluation. The initiative aims to tap into GEF funding to enhance its livelihoods component. Speaking on this, the national project coordinator of NEWMAP-EIB, Anda Ayuba Yalaks, noted that livelihood development has always been central to the project since the World Bank-supported NEWMAP phase. He expressed hope that the livelihoods and climate change response components would be reinvigorated to better address poverty among women and youths.

GEF-funded projects focusing on livelihood development under the seventh funding cycle (GEF-7) have been particularly beneficial to communities across Ondo, Delta, Ogun, and Edo states. “GEF has assisted the National Park Service in no small way,” recalled the conservator-general of the Nigerian National Park Service, Ibrahim Goni, when asked about livelihood development projects facilitated by GEF. “They are also supporting the National Park Service and the Ogun, Delta, Ondo, and Edo State Governments in the ecological restoration of degraded areas like Omo Forest Reserve, Gelegele Forest Reserve, and in the J4 Area. These are being done under GEF-7,” he added.

The GEF-7 project that the conservator-general was referring to is a five-year initiative aimed at conserving biodiversity, promoting sustainable use, and restoring lowland forest landscapes in Ogun, Edo, Delta, and Ondo States. The project was approved in December 2023 and is expected to run until 2028. Implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in collaboration with the National Park Service, it has received a GEF grant of US$3.5 million, with expected co-financing of approximately US$33 million. The project seeks to improve sustainable management of forest resources and strengthen the livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) in the target areas.

Some milestones of the initiative were completed and commissioned on June 9 by the minister of environment, Balarabe Abbas Lawal. Goni explained that the commissioned projects include the construction and furnishing of accommodation facilities for rangers and forest guards. According to him, GEF, through the FAO, also supported the training of personnel and supplied sophisticated kits, including ICT equipment, GPS devices, patrol kits, sleeping bags, and camping tents. Goni added that he looks forward to greater support for training and livelihood programmes under GEF-9.

The livelihood component is strongly emphasized by the GEF, and projects will now be assessed using a new metric, according to approved Council documents. The GEF-9 Results Management Framework will introduce new indicators that track how projects contribute to improved livelihoods, women’s empowerment and participation in environmental and natural resource management, and the creation of an enabling policy environment for environmental sustainability. This framework will be applied during the project approval process. Therefore, when Nigerian implementing and executing agencies submit projects through the Project Identification Form (PIF), they must clearly demonstrate the expected results using the specific indicators across GEF thematic areas, with particular emphasis on livelihood improvements.

The Role of Green Water Dynamics in GEF-9 Projects

Another important area of assessment for Nigerian projects will be the integration of green water dynamics. Green water refers to rainwater stored in the soil and available to plants, as opposed to blue water found as rivers, lakes, and oceans. This was highlighted by Sunday Leonard, secretary of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel.

“Blue water is not the complete hydrological side. The hydrological cycle also includes water that is in the soil that gets evaporated in the atmosphere, and the uniqueness of that is that there’s transboundary relationship in that kind of water, because as the water vapor flows, it influences whether it’s going to rain somewhere else, and so on. Our governments currently only focus on blue water that looks more tangible than green water, and our advice is that you have to incorporate all of that water when you think of how you manage water, so that’s basically what we mean by the global hydrological cycle,” Leonard explained.

STAP’s guidance for the GEF-9 cycle strongly emphasizes hydrological influences on environmental degradation, an area the Panel will scrutinize closely in project submissions. At the PIF or concept stage, STAP reviews projects and, for GEF-9, will particularly look for those projects with indicators that show that they integrate green water dynamics with blue water, ensure forest sustainability, and incorporate water-conserving agricultural and agroforestry practices.

Challenges to GEF Projects in Nigeria and the Way Forward

Some state governments have previously failed to fulfil their counterpart funding obligations for certain GEF projects, and this has stalled implementation and even threatened the renewal of some projects, Goni admitted. He observed that this has remained a persistent challenge to project sustainability at the state level and is only now being resolved under the current federal administration.

“[GEF and its implementing agencies] will expect that where they are working, the country should be able to pay the salaries and allowances of the staff. That to them is counterpart funding,” he said.

“But in most of the states, salaries and allowances sometimes [are not paid to the project staff], except for this new government that is seriously assisting governors to pay salaries. But in the past we have had this kind of challenge, where counterpart funding does not come from the states or is being delayed.”

He added that GEF-funded projects must be properly maintained after restoration. According to him, while implementing agencies often quantify restoration achievements in monetary terms, many projects eventually become moribund due to a lack of local ownership. On the part of the National Park Service, he said the agency continues to conduct sensitization and awareness programmes to ensure that communities take ownership of the projects in their areas and do not reject them, as has happened several times in the past.

Poor monitoring and evaluation continue to plague some GEF-financed projects in Nigeria, including the Great Green Wall initiative. The lack of effective monitoring of the initiative by the National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW) that is meant to benefit the 11 frontline states of Sokoto, Kebbi, Kastina, Zamfara, Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe, Borno, and Adamawa has resulted in many tree-planting sites being abandoned and converted into farmlands, high mortality of planted seedlings, and the collapse of boreholes meant to supply water to the plantations.

Speaking on the issue of poor monitoring and evaluation of environmental projects, Babagana Bukar, Nigeria’s GEF Operational Focal Point, acknowledged that the problem is a persistent one in the country. He attributed the solution to building staff capacity and strengthening knowledge management. Bukar stated that the Federal Ministry of Environment will pursue capacity building and training programmes across the ministry. He also emphasized the importance of knowledge transfer from senior to middle-level management so that expertise and project information are retained for continuous implementation. He added that such information should be accessible through the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.

However, Domoina Rakotobe, senior programme officer for technical assistance and capacity building at the High Ambition Coalition (HAC), of which Nigeria is a member, argued that transparency is more important. She noted that information and knowledge on projects should be readily available to the public without having to resort to the FOI Act.

Nigeria’s success in meeting its environmental targets under the GEF-9 cycle (which ends in 2030) will depend on how well its projects benefit local communities, integrate sustainable green water management, and achieve genuine local ownership.

This story was produced as part of a reporting fellowship to the Eighth GEF Assembly supported by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

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