Spillover of Bawku conflict: 23 arrested over galamsey in Oda River Forest Reserve
The Bawku conflict may have died down, but the full implications of the protracted dispute is emerging down south as 18 of the 23 illegal miners arrested in the Oda River Forest Reserve claim to have been displaced by the conflict.
The rapid response team of the Forestry Commission arrested the 23 illegal miners in a dawn to dusk swoop in the forest reserve located in the Ashanti Region in an intensified effort to clamp down on illegal mining activities in the Oda River and its tributaries.
But 18 of the galamseyers, four of them women, identified as indigenes of Bawku in the Upper East Region, said they lost their livelihoods when they fled the Bawku conflict.
The Deputy Ashanti Regional Manager of the Forest Services Division in charge of the Bekwai Forest District, Ernest Adofo, said the worrying trend now was the influx of people from Bawku to engage in illegal mining activities in the Oda River Forest Reserve.
"I have interacted with many of the arrested illegal miners and they confirmed to me that they left Bawku because of the conflict in the area, and were engaged in galamsey to make a living,” Mr Adofo told the Daily Graphic.
Some of the other suspects are from Zebilla, Bolgatanga, Nalerigu and Burkina Faso," he added.
During the operation, carried out last Thursday, the rapid response team burnt 43 camps of the illegal miners along the Oda River.
The team also destroyed 82 changfangs, 77 water pumping machines, and ceased 21 motorbikes and a tricycle being used by the illegal miners to carry out their illegalities.
Worrying development
Mr Adofo explained to the Daily Graphic that the successful operation was carried out by a 50-member team comprising the rapid response team, forest guards and officials from the Bekwai Forest District of the Forestry Commission.
He said the swoop was in response to the increasing number of illegal miners in the Oda River Forest Reserve and the devastation that was being caused to the river and other ecosystems.
Mr Adofo said it was worrying that despite the efforts of the forest guards and the rapid response team to clamp down on galamsey, the perpetrators remained unperturbed.
"We have been able to deal with the use of excavators in the Oda River Forest Reserve; but the worrying trend now is the increasing use of chanfangs and water pumping machines to pollute the Oda River.
During the swoop, we saw many of the illegal miners, but they managed to escape arrest," he said.
Context
The latest scientific study by the Forestry Commission revealed that a whopping 8,923.8 hectares of the country's forest reserves, equivalent to 12,500 FIFA standard football fields, have been heavily impacted by illegal mining activities.
The findings of a national satellite remote-sensing-based verification of mined-out areas in forest reserves, released by the commission on February 24 this year, revealed that the affected areas encompassed 45 forest reserves and a national park as of December 31, 2024.
The research revealed that the three most impacted forest reserves were the Oda River Forest Reserve (2,654.8 hectares), Upper Wassa (1,660.4) and the Apamprama Forest Reserve (1,366.7).
