Wassa Esaman: Forestry Commission immobilizes vehicles and mining accessories in forest reserve

Scores of vehicles, motorbikes, rickshaws and changfang machines at an illegal mining site in the Subri Forest at Wassa Esaman in the Mpohor Wassa East District of the Western Region have been immobilized while others were completely burnt in an anti-galamsay operation by the Forestry Commission.

Forest reserves in the Western Region are under threat from illegal mining activities, illegal tree felling and other human activities.

However, illegal mining is the biggest threat as their activities have seriously impacted seven out of the 19 Forest Reserves in the region.

At the Subri Forest Reserve, scores of vehicles including SUVs, trucks and saloon cars ostensibly providing logistical support to the illegal mining activities were found during an operation by the Forestry Commission to combat illegal mining in forest reserves.

This is besides the large number of motorbikes, rickshaws, generators and pumping machines among others.

Briefing the media on activities undertaken from January to September to rid forest reserves of illegal miners, the Western Regional Manager of the Forestry Commission, Nana Poku Bosompem said 159 persons engaged in illegal mining have been arrested with 36 different cases before the courts.

According to him, three excavators have been immobilized, and 1,103 Changfang dredging machines totally burnt across seven forest reserves at an estimated cost of about 28 million Ghana cedis to illegal miners.

During these separate operations, 1,420 pumping machines and 387 temporary structures were also destroyed. On the recent operation over the weekend at Wassa Esaman in the Mpohor Wassa East District, Mr Bosompem said 20 persons were arrested while operational machines aiding illegal mining activities were immobilized or burnt.

He mentioned that the activities of thugs or ‘macho men’ preventing forestry officers from entering some forest reserves remain a source of significant worry.

Mr Bosompem has expressed serious reservations about the delay in securing convictions as well the seeming unwillingness of the police to prosecute suspects they have arrested.

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