To many of us who clamoured for change, the overwhelming mandate Ghanaians gave President John Dramani Mahama also meant a clear message to save our beloved country from the continuing ecocide by doing the following from day 1:

• RepealLI2462
• Declare a state of Emergency over our waterbodies and forest reserves
• Review and cancel all licenses which were granted without proper safeguards
• Pause community and alluvial small scale mining and take time to properly restructure the sector to fully unlock value for communities, Ghana and investors.

While we continue to hold out hope, our excitement is dwindling. Sporadic news of action in some forest reserves are almost always overshadowed by others of either continued activity in new areas or by new players. We knew fighting a highly lucrative criminal cartel won't be easy. However, with an almost unanimous mandate, our President will have no excuse if he FAILS TO ACT to save our country.

Picture courtesy - Edem Srem Sai, Award winning photo journalist & environmentalist