Are we stuarts or stewards?
My dictionary.com tells me that a Stuart is a member of the Scottish Royal Family that ruled in Scotland from 1371 to 1714 and in England from 1603 to 1714.
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It also tells me that a steward is a person who manages another's property or financial affairs; that is, one who administers anything as the agent of another or others.
We are blessed as a country with abundant natural and environmental resources and are supposed to utilise them prudently to our advantage.
However, if we live like Stuarts and do not become good stewards of our natural resources, we may regret and also cause our descendants to curse us.
Something appears to be missing with regard to the stewardship of our natural and environmental resources. We seem to have forgotten the terminology ‘sustainable development’, which evoked considerable write-ups, discussions and action plans after the Rio Summit in 1992, following the publication of the report – Our Common Future - by the Brundtland Commission in 1987.
Sustainable development
In simple terms, sustainable development is defined as our ability to meet our needs without compromising future generations to meet their needs. The import of this is that while using our resources, we owe it as a duty to ensure that future generations are not prevented from also enjoying these resources.
Further, when we talk about sustainable development, we mean economic growth, social equity and environmental stewardship, which are aptly referred to as the triple bottom line. It is a fact that in some dispensations, the third pillar of sustainable development - environmental stewardship - is regarded as less important than the other two. However, any abuse or abnormal use of the environment adversely affects the attainment of both economic growth and social equity.
Life support systems
The environment is our life support system. It includes everything that we rely on during our lifetime such as air, water, metals, soil, rock and other living organisms. There is a maxim which says ‘when the last tree is cut, the last man dies.’ This adage can hardly be disputed. What this means is that our lives depend on certain support systems like air, trees, water, etc. Why are we allowing our environment to be so much degraded without raising a finger? I do not want to think that we are comfortable with this situation.
Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water and soil; including the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of wildlife. We should not be so reckless with the management of our environmental and natural resources to the extent that future generations will be denied access to them. We have all bemoaned the recent loss of lives and monumental damage in Accra, precisely on June 3, 2015. While the committee investigating the causes is yet to present its report, our behaviour and habit of dumping waste on any available land and building on water courses might have contributed immensely to that unfortunate incident.
As a country, we are blessed with abundant minerals, particularly gold. The question is, why should we visit so much harm on our motherland through the pollution of our water bodies and even put our health on the line by poisoning our land and water resources with cyanide and mercury? Do we care about how future generations will be adversely impacted by our seeming inaction? What are we doing about ‘galamsey’ – a jargon meaning ‘gather them and sell’?
Galamsey
Up till the end of 2006, galamsey had been undertaken on a comparatively small-scale, albeit illegally, mainly by Ghanaians. However, within the last seven years or so, there has been a paradigm shift in its modus operandi. It has increasingly become mechanised, following the influx of foreign nationals into the illegal activity.
The foreigners are spearheaded by Chinese, who have pumped considerable resources – cash, equipment and machinery - into the business. The pertinent question is: – Why is galamsey so focused on gold mining? Unlike the other minerals, gold is a precious metal, whose dust can also be easily amalgamated using mercury, after relatively simple processes like panning and or gravity concentration.
The amalgamated gold is easy to carry about due to its relatively small size compared to the volume of the original gold-bearing ore. It is significant to note that to protect themselves and their businesses, most of these foreign nationals arm themselves with guns and engage in occasional skirmishes with the youth of the villages from which they operate their illegal businesses.
Some unsuccessful attempts have been made by the government to flush out foreigners engaged in galamsey through occasional arrests, seizure of their equipment and machinery and deportation. It is noteworthy that galamsey does not only rob Ghana of revenue due to evaded taxes, the use of chemicals like mercury and the reckless destruction of forests and water bodies. It poses serious safety, health and environmental hazards not only to the present generation, but to the future generations as well.
Disturbing impacts of galamsey
The reportage in the July 3, 2015 edition of the Daily Graphic captioned – Illegal miners block Black Volta – is a wake-up call to us to immediately do something about galamsey before it is too late. This action must be clinical! In this piece of information, we are told that significant portions of the Black Volta have been blocked by ‘galamseyers’ at Kunchie in the Nadowli-Kaleo District of the Upper West Region.
Consequently, the blockade has robbed the Akosombo and Bui Dams of huge water source to run their turbines. Further, we learned that the contamination of the water with cyanide has killed the fish in that part of the river, as well as making the water unwholesome for the people living in the neighbourhood. Additionally, the Wa water project is also under threat.
In this era of unprecedented ‘dumsor’ or ‘dum-dum’, depending on where one resides, can we afford to lose any megawatts due to inadequate water resources to generate power, through our inertia to act against galamsey? Why do we spend so much money to generate more electricity to meet our needs, but fail to protect the megawatts that we obtain from relatively cheap hydro sources?
It is true that we did something in the past to contain that menace, but we appear to have relaxed, while galamsey is becoming more and more destructive. This is déjà vu! We are quick to go for brand new things with cutting-edge technologies, but have an abhorrent culture of failing to protect, maintain or service what we have toiled to build or bequeathed to us. Considering the huge costs involved in generating more power, can we be prudent to conserve what we already have?
Pollution of water bodies
In a country such as South Africa, where there are relatively few water bodies, potable water is piped from Lesotho, a neighbouring country, at huge cost to meet her needs. When travelling from Aflao to Half Assini, one can see the extent of damage that galamsey has unleashed on our big rivers, which have turned brown, with significant harm to aquatic life, and the ecosystem. These water bodies which had crystal clear water are now heavily polluted. Commerce and industry, households and also thermal power generation depends on copious quantities of water for various purposes. Are we waiting for the day when we would have to import potable water from overseas to meet our needs?
We need to act now to save the country from water-stress. This necessitates curbing the menace of galamsey without delay to avoid imminent regret; not to mention the denial of future generations access to clean and healthy water, which has no known substitute.
• The author may be reached at enerwiseafrica@gmail.com