{"id":1225743,"date":"2022-10-16T11:00:20","date_gmt":"2022-10-16T11:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/10\/16\/csir-researcher-argues-against-use-of-soldiers-to-fight-galamsey\/"},"modified":"2022-10-16T11:00:20","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T11:00:20","slug":"csir-researcher-argues-against-use-of-soldiers-to-fight-galamsey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/10\/16\/csir-researcher-argues-against-use-of-soldiers-to-fight-galamsey\/","title":{"rendered":"CSIR researcher argues against use of soldiers to fight galamsey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) researcher, Dr. Albert Kobina Mensah, has argued against the use of the military in the fight against illegal mining amid renewed attention to the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on <em><strong>The Big Issue <\/strong><\/em>on <strong>Citi TV<\/strong>, Dr. Mensah argued that deploying the military will not address the root causes of illegal mining.<\/p>\n<p>He noted political and economic factors as being key drivers of illegal mining.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll these factors are not being dealt with, with the use of the military because the use of the military is a jackboot approach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe use of the military is a command and control strategy which involves the use of force,\u201d Dr. Mensah also noted.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the researcher said using the military \u201cgives little room for participation of the very people affected in the sector.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He stressed that the \u201ccentralised approach to the management of natural resources may not work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Mensah explained further that developmental projects that don\u2019t engage the people affected will bring conflict or result in white elephants.<\/p>\n<p>The current military action against illegal mining is Operation Halt, which was launched in April 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Operation Halt is made up of personnel from the Ghana Armed Forces with the mandate to remove all persons and mining equipment from water bodies and forest reserves in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Over the period, the team worked around polluted rivers, such as, Pra, Offin, Ankobra, Birim and Ayensu, as well as forest reserves in the country.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"d42EPOnAN6U\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Chiefs part of the galamsey problem \u2013 Asantehene fumes | CNR\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d42EPOnAN6U?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) researcher, Dr. Albert Kobina Mensah, has argued against the use of the military in the fight against illegal mining amid renewed attention to the problem. Speaking on The Big Issue on Citi TV, Dr. Mensah argued that deploying the military will not address the root causes of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1225745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1225743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1225743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1225743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1225743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1225743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}