Mining in Ghana's Forest Reserves and the Green Ghana agenda

On Tuesday, May 14, we petitioned the President of Ghana on the mining license issued to Betterland Ghana ltd, a company incorporated in 2017 and 100% owned by Tower Assets Ltd.  We also issued a Press Statement on the subject, questioning how destroying an established Forest reserve such as the Draw, which is also a GSBA, could be considered in the national interest. 

Above is the Draw River Forest Reserve. The 3 marked concessions are all for Betterland Ghana Ltd. The Middle one is already granted. The right one is under review, and the one on the left is under validation. This is unconscionable.

Even more perplexing was that while they give out forest reserves and GSBAs like the Draw for mining, Ghana's Minister for Lands and Natural Resources Hon. Samuel Abu Jinapor was at the recent 19th Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF19) at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York calling on world leaders to increase financing for forest action to tackle the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. We cannot continue to pay lip service to environmental stewardship and conservation while we blatantly continue to destroy our forest reserves! 

We CANNOT in good conscience, allow established forest reserves like the Draw to be mined, while we hypocritically attempt to green Ghana. While at it, let me also add, that we need to enforce the laws of the land and halt the unprecedented destruction of our rivers and intentional poisoning of our lands from galamsey.