Top: Illustration by Michael Harijgens for The DayLight
By Emmanuel Sherman
MONROVIA – Liberia has introduced a permit for gold and diamond dredging, lifting a ban on the mining method associated with pollution. Meanwhile, that is exactly the opposite of what has been done in Ghana, where it has been outlawed.
Both countries’ actions come at a time of a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that illegal mining poses a serious global threat. The report found that criminal gangs were seeking to gain control of gold mines in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia.
Last year, Liberia introduced a permit for dredging to increase mining revenue. Small-scale gold and diamond miners can now pay US$1,500 for a dredge permit, and medium-scale miners US$10,000. The permit lifts the 2019 ban, aimed at reforming Liberia’s artisanal mining subsector. So far, no permit has been issued.
Ghana, on the other hand, repealed a law last December to protect its forests and waterways from dredging and other forms of illicit mining. The 2022 law had allowed mining in protected forest reserves, exposing 89 percent of Ghana’s forest reserves to mining.
The repeal followed demonstrations that called for a state of emergency to combat dredging, or as Ghanaians call it, galamsey—a play on “gather them and sell.”
President John Mahama, who made fighting galamsey a campaign promise, had encouraged demonstrators to push the government to act. “I am determined. Let us win this galamsey fight together,” President Mahama said.
One of Ghana’s biggest environmental issues is galamsey, which dates back to pre-colonial times when rural communities were involved in gold-winning practices. It allowed gold won by locals to be used to sustain trade across the goldfields, which later developed into an organized criminal network that spiraled out of control.
Galamsey, the illegal mining trade, has a severe toll on Ghana, which led to the destruction of over 4,700 hectares of land across seven regions, causing deforestation and degradation. The Pra River, once a vibrant ecosystem, has been polluted with toxic chemicals like mercury. Israel Derick Apeti, an artist- activist, used some of the polluted water to paint, highlighting the crisis.
George Manful, a former official of Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency, intimated that mercury remains in waterways for 1,000 years. “We are slowly poisoning ourselves with undrinkable water,” Manful told the BBC.
Like Ghana, dredge mining has polluted Liberia’s watercourses, posing a health hazard to rural dwellers and threatening their livelihoods. It also has huge negative impacts on aquatic species, experts say.
“When rivers are dredged, the nesting grounds are destroyed, and fish migrate,” said Eugene Shannon, an environmentalist and an ex-Minister of Mines and Energy, who set up the previous fee structure that did not include dredging permits.
Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia warned illegal miners about the overuse of mercury in Liberian waters.
“When we mine gold using mercury, the mercury spreads in the water. The fish live in the water and get their food. The mercury enters the fish. When we eat fish, mercury enters our bodies,” said Dr. Emmanuel Yarkpawolo, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia.
“This can cause damage to our kidneys, cause deafness, cause blindness, and cause women to give birth to children with all kinds of brain problems.”
Two months after Yarkpawolo’s speech, Liberia ratified the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which protects people and the environment from the chemical.
‘Dangerous’ level
Mining is one of the key drivers of Liberia’s economy. The sector generated over US$121.49 million in 2023 or nearly 85 percent of total revenue, according to the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Mining also contributed about 80 percent of all exports. The International Monetary Fund estimates that the Liberian economy will grow by 5.4 percent this year, up from 4.6 percent last year, thanks to the mining industry.
But illegal mining has been a problem for Liberia due to a weak regulatory system, according to a 2021 report by the General Auditing Commission. About 90 percent of gold from Liberia’s artisanal and small-scale mining sector is believed to be smuggled out of the country each year, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. That amounts to a US$455 million loss as of 2011.
Liberia has, however, convicted no one for smuggling or illicit mining. A US$48.8 million case involving Randy Scott, a Liberian miner, and several Chinese nationals, the biggest in Liberia’s mining history, was dropped mysteriously. The men had been accused of economic sabotage, tax evasion, criminal conspiracy, environmental degradation, and encroachment.
Like Liberia, mining is also a pillar of the Ghanaian economy. Ghana is Africa’s largest and the world’s sixth-highest producer of gold, which is at an all-time high of US$4,670 per ounce as of Monday. Last year, Ghana generated over US$10 billion from small-scale gold export. Its GDP grew by 5.7 percent in 2024, with mining largely responsible for the growth.
But, unlike Liberia, Ghana has taken measures to combat dredging. Apart from repealing that law recently, over 850 people are facing prosecution currently for galamsey. Authorities said 76 galamseyers, including 18 foreign nationals, have been convicted of illegal mining since August 2021. Thousands of Chinese have been deported in a crackdown on illegal miners. The country intends to imprison 10 Chinese arrested for illegal gold trade if convicted.
“We are moving heaven and earth so that they dance to the music of the Ghanaian law,” said Prince Kwame Minkah, spokesman for the Ghana Gold Board.
In response to The DayLight’s queries, the Liberian Ministry of Mines and Energy justified that the permit was an alternative to the dredging ban that had proved “difficult to control.” The ministry stated that it had a system to monitor dredge permit holders.
“The fees will not only increase revenue collection for the government. [It] will help enhance enforcement activities in the mining sector, while the Ministry continues to collaborate with the Environmental Protection Agency on curbing harms to the environment from mining activities,” said the ministry.
Emmanuel Swen, Liberia’s ex-Assistant Minister for Mines, who had helped ban dredging, said permitting dredging was all about the money, and not people or the environment.
“The issue is not about the contribution the use of dredge makes to revenue generation, which seems to be the ministry’s concern,” said Swen. “It is about the adverse environmental footprints that the permit in itself does not address.”
Liberia’s position on dredging mining mirrors Ghana’s initial stance on it, which proved counterproductive. In 1989, Ghana legalized the use of mercury to formalize its small-scale mining subsector. The decision helped spur an increase in gold exports, but a state-backed study found mining has driven mercury pollution to a “dangerous” level.
Integrity Watch Liberia provided funding for this story. The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over its content.
