By Alex Baah Boadi
Sefwi Juaboso (WN/R), March 07, GNA – The Resource Foundation Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has organised a workshop for stakeholders to dialogue on curbing illegal mining in the Western North Region.
The dialogue, held at Sefwi Juaboso, with funding support from the Canada Fund for Local Initiative, was under the “Empowering Communities and Media to Combat Illegal Mining and Youth Radicalisation” project.
The project is aimed at strengthening community-led action and institutional collaboration to combat illegal mining while preventing youth radicalisation.
The event was attended by major stakeholders such as representatives from the Western North Regional Coordinating council, district coordinating directors, traditional authorities, civil society organizations, security agencies, the media, women groups, and farmer cooperatives among others.
Mr Elliot Stephen Mensah, Executive Coordinator of the Resource Foundation Ghana, during the event said the dialogue was part of efforts to educate communities in mining areas on the environmental destruction and social risks associated with illegal mining.
“Beyond awareness creation, the project seeks to examine youth vulnerabilities that make them susceptible to illegal mining activities and to promote peaceful prevention strategies within illegal mining prone communities,” he said.
He highlighted key environmental concerns already recorded in affected areas including severe water pollution, destruction of cocoa farms, deforestation and the proliferation of abandoned mining pits that posed significant safety hazards.
Mr Mensah appealed to regulatory authorities and local assemblies to intensify joint monitoring operations, enhance land reclamation regulations, and provide support to farmers and the youth to stop them from engaging in illegal mining.
Nana Kwabena Yeboah II, Chief of Abrokofe, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, (GNA) after the workshop, called on the government to set up community mining schemes to curb the activities of illegal mining.
He said this would help create sustainable employment avenues for the teeming youth who mostly engaged in illegal mining.
Others also expressed deep concern about the havoc caused by illegal mining activities to water bodies and farmlands in some communities within the western North Region.
They asked the government to take more pragmatic measures to help end the devastating impacts of illegal mining in the area.
GNA
Edited byJustina Hilda Paaga/George-Ramsey Benamba
