The government has said that it will thoroughly examine the petition presented to it by a group of non-governmental organizations campaigning against plans to mine bauxite in the Atewa forest.
The group, mainly made up of environmental activists last Friday staged a peaceful march through some principal streets in Accra and ended at the Parliament House where their petition was received by the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu.
The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Kweku Asomah Cheremeh whose outfit is key to the proposed mining activity said the government will ensure that the government treats the matter with seriousness.
“With the hullabaloo that the indigenes have raised, all these have informed us to do reasonable and sustainable mining to the extent that, all this environment will be saved. We are not going to destroy all that edifice by way of trees on the ground, or rivers on the ground. We will look at the issues they have raised in their petition paragraph by paragraph and take a decision accordingly,” the Minister said.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, weeks ago gave similar assurances that the government’s plan to have bauxite mined in the country’s largest surviving natural rainforest, the Atewa forest, will not in any way destroy the environment.
He said that the technology to be adopted by the miners would reduce the impact of the mining activity on the quality of life of persons whose livelihoods depend on the forest’s resources.
But a spokesperson for the Coalition of Environmental groups, Daryl Bosu, insisted that there was no technology that will protect the environment from mining.
“We very much disagree [with President Akufo-Addo] based on the fact that what he said is not proven and there is no fact to substantiate that. As far as we know, there is no technology that is used for bauxite mining anywhere in the world that really goes to describe what the president has talked about. Bauxite mining anywhere in the world is one of the most destructive enterprises ever.”
“If he really has that technology he is talking about, he should show all of us. We are ready to see it and we are ready to change our position if he can show us that, that is possible,” Mr. Bosu said in an earlier interview on Eyewitness News.
The government is yet to make public the environmental impact assessment for the project and the technology for the mining.
Planned bauxite mining in Atewa
President Akufo-Addo, who is a UN Sustainable Development Goals champion and his New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, has come under serious criticism over the decision to mine bauxite in the forest as part of a $2 billion Chinese infrastructure deal.
Some environmental activists and concerned groups including A ROCHA Ghana which has been campaigning for the protection of the Atewa Forest have called into question the president’s commitment to protecting the country’s forest resources.
Other organizations such as the Christian Council of Ghana and the US Forest Service which the government contracted to for technical consultation have urged the government to be cautious about the process due to the likelihood of having the water sources of some five million Ghanaians affected.
The Christian Council, in particular, suggested that the forest could be turned into a National Park as an alternative to mining.
But the government has already taken action to mine in the forest.
