The ruthless destruction caused by galamsey—often comparable in scale to an ethnic pogrom—and its far-reaching catalytic effects exhibit the features of a transgenerational environmental disaster.
Its impact extends several kilometres beyond active mining sites, thereby complicating efforts to design and implement effective interventions.
It is, therefore, unsurprising that the fight against galamsey has attracted both national and international attention. Yet, despite a suite of interventions, the problem has eluded any durable solution.
This persistent failure underscores the need for more effective approaches to a problem that is, at once, simple in form but extraordinarily complex in practice, and driven by the actions of both Ghanaians and foreign actors.
The crisis unfolds at a particularly complex moment: environmental consciousness is increasing, legal and illegal mining activities are expanding, and Ghana continues to seek greater benefits from its gold resources.
This creates a fundamental tension. How do we mine responsibly—or should mining cease altogether?
The latter option, though arguably attractive in the short term, currently lacks political and social support.
I proceed, therefore, on the assumption that mining will continue and that its adverse environmental impacts—often brutal in nature—will persist.
What varies is not whether mining harms the environment, but the degree, scale, and manifestations of that harm.
My purpose in writing this piece is to offer a criminological perspective that modestly contributes to our collective effort to find lasting solutions to the galamsey crisis. I do so with caution, aware that no single discipline holds the exclusive key to resolving the problem.
A sustainable path forward must be multidisciplinary and multilayered, organised across immediate, medium-term, and long-term strategies.
With this context in mind, I begin with a brief historical overview of gold mining in Ghana.
This historical lens is crucial, as it illuminates how gold extraction has evolved across time and space, and reveals the deep-rooted complexities that shape contemporary challenges.
I then introduce several criminological concepts—evidence-based policing, the crime harm index, hotspot policing, and legitimacy—before applying them to the galamsey context.
I conclude with a set of suggestions.
Historical foundations
The fort depicted on Ghana’s Coat of Arms is not merely decorative; it symbolises the country’s central place in global history and its early integration into international trade networks through the extraction of gold and other natural resources along the Guinea Coast.
Numerous scholars, including Samuel Ntewusu, Kwame Arhin, Robert Addo-Fening, Ababio Ofosu-Mensah and Dumett, have documented that gold mining in this region long predates European arrival and that European traders were struck by the skill of local artisanal miners.
To illustrate the importance of gold to Europeans, van Dantzig (2000, p.1) notes that “tradeposts, fortified or not, have been built in various parts of the world, but nowhere in such great numbers along such a relatively short stretch of coast”, with more than sixty castles, forts, and lodges constructed along a coastline less than 500 kilometres long over three centuries.
James Anquandah (2000, p.20) places the figure even higher—at approximately eighty fortifications—and emphasises that the nearly 500-kilometre coastal stretch contained, on average, one fort every 15 kilometres, representing the densest concentration of European fortifications on the African continent.
Completed in 1482 by the Portuguese, Elmina Castle—aptly named “the mine”—stood as a symbol of fierce European competition for the region’s resources, including human captives.
This intense scramble transformed the Gold Coast into what van Dantzig described as “the ancient shopping street of West Africa”.
This dynamic persists today, reflected in the activities of multinational mining companies, small-scale operators, and illegal artisanal miners.
The term shopping street is particularly instructive, capturing the hegemonic relations and extractive practices that characterised early European engagement—and remain embedded in contemporary global capitalism.
Thus, the fort on Ghana’s Coat of Arms serves as a powerful metaphor for understanding the historical and ongoing patterns of natural resource (mis)management—shaped both by European exploitation and by Ghana’s own enduring governance challenges.
Colonial legacies, contemporary resource governance
The historical imprint of European extractive practices continues to shape Ghana’s mineral economy and governance frameworks.
Colonial institutions entrenched systems of resource exploitation that prioritised profit extraction over environmental stewardship or community welfare.
Post-colonial governments have, in many respects, inherited and reproduced these structures, often resulting in persistent governance failures, weak regulatory enforcement, and susceptibility to corruption.
The symbolic significance of the forts—built to protect European commercial and political interests—thus provides insight into contemporary challenges.
From concession allocation to the regulation of small-scale mining, the echoes of extractive colonialism remain visible in the fragmented systems that govern Ghana’s natural resources today.
Gold remains one of Ghana’s leading foreign-exchange earners. According to the Ghana Gold Board, gold exports increased by over 50 per cent to USD 11.6 billion in 2024, with small-scale and artisanal mining contributing significantly to this growth.
The Board further projects annual revenue of USD 12 billion from small-scale production alone.
The enduring profitability of gold underscores why the sector remains highly contested and why interventions aimed at mitigating environmental degradation face significant obstacles.
For centuries, gold has been intensively coveted, aggressively contested, and brutally extracted.
Contemporary challenges must, therefore, be understood within this long-standing historical and economic trajectory.
State responses, militarised enforcement
In recent years, numerous efforts have been made to address the galamsey crisis, with the most frequently proposed intervention being heavy-handed enforcement, including the deployment of the military.
I do not intend to catalogue the full range of government responses here.
However, Ghana has developed a troubling tendency to rely prematurely on military intervention in contexts where properly designed and executed policing strategies may be more effective.
Overreliance on military solutions risks escalating tensions, undermining legitimacy, and failing to address the social, economic, and environmental drivers of illegal mining.
This is where criminological insights—particularly evidence-based policing, harm measurement, spatial crime analysis, and legitimacy—provide valuable alternative lenses for policy and enforcement.
Evidence-based policing promotes interventions grounded in empirical research rather than intuition or political expediency.
Applying this approach to galamsey would require systematic data collection, rigorous evaluation of past interventions, and the adoption of strategies that have demonstrable impact.
The Crime Harm Index (CHI) prioritises harmful crimes rather than focusing solely on crime frequency.
In the galamsey context, a harm-based metric will help authorities identify the most destructive hotspots, target high-harm actors, and allocate resources more effectively.
I call this the Galamsey-related Environmental Crime Harm Index (GRECHI), which builds on Larry Sherman and his colleagues’ conceptualisation of the Cambridge Crime Harm Index.
Hotspot Policing
Illegal mining activity is geographically concentrated. Hotspot policing—a strategy that focuses enforcement in high-risk zones—could help disrupt entrenched galamsey operations, especially when combined with intelligence-led approaches.
Legitimacy is foundational to effective policing. Enforcement efforts that lack transparency, fairness, treating people with dignity and respect or community input are unlikely to succeed.
Legitimacy-focused strategies can strengthen compliance, enhance cooperation, and reduce opportunities for corruption—one of the most critical variables undermining anti-galamsey efforts.
Towards a multilayered strategy
A sustainable response to galamsey must integrate insights from criminology, environmental science, economics, political ecology, and community-based governance.
These four criminological concepts, I believe, hold relevance in the broader effort to deal with the problem.
Legitimacy, for example, will help us think through more carefully about the role of the rule of law, human rights, the balance between force and soft power, procedural and distributive justice, etc.
Addressing the problem requires immediate, medium-term, and long-term strategies that balance enforcement, environmental protection, economic opportunity, and institutional reform.
In conclusion, addressing galamsey demands a multilayered and multidisciplinary strategy, structured across immediate, medium, and long-term interventions.
Although a detailed discussion of corruption lies beyond the scope of this piece, analytical lenses such as evidence-based policing, the crime harm index, hotspot policing, and legitimacy strongly indicate that corruption remains a central factor in the persistence of galamsey and a key reason why efforts to combat it have repeatedly failed.
Writer’s Email: Emmanuel.sowatey@gmail.com
