New satellite photos of Ghana have surfaced online, demonstrating the costs incurred by the nation due to the ongoing, unchecked threat of illegal small-scale mining (galamsey).
Images showing what appears to be substantial forest cover loss were posted on Twitter by presenter and host of GTV Breakfast Kafui Dey. This exposed the country’s hemisphere to a variety of adverse climate conditions.
Kafui Dey also bemoaned a significant weakness in the fight against galamsey, highlighting the fact that national officials are aware of those responsible for these crimes but have done little to stop them.
“Nobody can tell us they don’t know where the galamsey activities are in this country. Look at the pits, these are the places the action is happening,” he wrote.
The battle against galamsey has continued unabatedly, but it is now obvious that the more aggressively the government and other authorities take on the threat, the more other problems will undermine the advances made.
See the photos and video below, which were sent to GhanaWeb by documentary filmmaker Edem Srem and show some of the environmental destruction caused by galamseyers’ activities:
