Random thoughts of a Rural Farmer: Galamsey

By Francis Owusu-Achampong(FCIB)

 ..Are the gods asleep, drunk or apathetic? (37)

My greatest shock and dismay in all the recklessness flowing from galamsey devastation is what has happened to the river gods which looked on for such monumental destruction to take place on our river bodies and forests?!

I am bewildered about when the river deities are going to wake up from their slumber and strike the perpetrators of these calamitous acts against the environment and our survival as a nation.  Have they not seen or heard about all the demonstrations against galamsey going on across the country?

Are the river gods drunk from the incessant libations we have poured from the schnapps that their priests have always demanded? Or they are simply apathetic to our self – inflicted woes? Things have really fallen apart and serious interventions are needed beyond the travesty where some  law enforcers and land custodians  find it more lucrative to assist law breakers.

Growing up in Ejisu-Kwamo some six decades ago, we were made to believe that any person who eased himself close to a water body could have his stomach instantly swollen as punishment from the river gods.

That was enough to instil fear and extract obedience from everyone.  We held water bodies, dedicated forest groves and even cemetaries in awe. Hygienic practices were thereby enforced over our sources of drinking water and over exploitation of other natural resources was curbed through self regulation spearheaded by traditional rulers. The myths around the Tano, Pra, Odaw, Birim, Ankobra, and Volta rivers could send shivers down anyone’s spine at the time.

We were made to believe that lovers who attempted to do the unthinkable while swimming in a river had huge water snakes emerging from nowhere to chase them out.

So, from where did we get the audacity (or is it stupidity or recklessness) to lead foreigners to gold rich forests and rivers to desecrate these for pittances at the expense of our own and children’s future?  The semblance of this self destruction can be likened to our ancestors’ complicity in the slave trade for which some are calling for reparation.

In our traditional environmental conservation practices, I witnessed that grandma and others always even refrained from clearing land too close to riverbanks on their own volition in their farming activities. The canopy over the river body was thus preserved from excessive evaporation during the dry season.

I have carried the same respect for the environment into my post- retirement farming ventures, deliberately creating a sanctuary for crabs and other aquatic creatures to multiply.

It is such a monumental contradiction that the state that is supposed to preserve the environment has looked on for such unimaginable scale of destruction to the environment to continue. Forest reserves are depleted with official complicity, yet no one has been punished.

Some major rivers have been so contaminated that they can hardly sustain any aquatic life. Few people appreciate the enormity of the destruction now and into the future. All this has happened in the full glare of government officials, chiefs and other powerful but greedy, hypocritical individuals.

Elsewhere in the US, an ex- president is reported to be so incensed about immigrants allegedly eating their cats and dogs. An apparently mundane cultural practice such as this is enough to crack a nation’s conscience.

In Ghana, however, high ranking public officials are complicit in the devastation of our common heritage, with some allegedly guiding and protecting foreigners engaged in the devastation.

Others are reportedly promising amnesty for people found to have been wilfully involved in the destruction of the environment and properly jailed by competent courts in the land, all in the name of wrestling political power!

Under such conditions, one is left to wonder where all these river spirits/gods have emigrated to. The gods appear to be apathetic to our plight while the spectre of a generation of deformed babies and cancer inducing diseases haunt us from our recklessness.

Watching television and seeing some of the youth in the galamsey business taunting others who attempted to stop them from their illegal activities, I carried the scenes into my dream that night.

In my dream, I saw some public officials in a closed- door meeting discussing what could be done about the intense agitation against the galamsey menace.   I overhead someone say “let us be cautious about our approach to stopping galamsey, or we unwittingly give political leadership to our opponents. The electorate in the mining areas may vote against us. ‘Party no hia sika’; let us condone by half- hearted measures while the pressure groups shout themselves hoarse”

Then, some cockroach impudently, settled on my bald head, momentarily jolting me from my sleep. I wondered whether we can have leaders with altruistic intentions for this country and I found justification for my pessimism.

Tweneboah-Koduah of Asanteman, the architects of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society in the Gold Coast, Kwame Nkrumah and other patriotic ancestors should take exeats from the other world to come and see how their descendants are desecrating the lands they fought for. We cannot even drink from the same pristine waters they bequeathed to us.  Our flora and fauna are under extreme threat as if we are leaderless.

Lake Bosumtwi is reportedly shrinking from massive siltation resulting from the devastation to the forest cover of its surrounding hills.

Do these call for more libation or a strong resolve to deal with galamsey irrespective of whose ox is gored? To what end are the so-called leaders chasing political power if we cannot be sincere stewards of the nation’s resources? Can we blame colonialists for these self-inflicted woes too, or there is a connection to the Russian-Ukraine war again?

God has finished with the business of creation. We shall never get new rivers, forests, plants and animals, if we persist in destroying our current resource endowments.

Patriotism, Honesty, and Integrity appear to have gone AWOL and few care about how to bring them back to sanitize this otherwise beautiful country.

Therapeutic encounters with nature

I escaped the monotony of city life by visiting my cocoa farm last week.  Sauntering through the farm, I saw a flock of birds gleefully feasting on one of my ripe banana crops.  As if on cue, they all fled in one direction, aware that I had chanced on their stealing expedition.

They chirped in unison and made me wonder whether they were thanking God for providing for them food or they were teasing me for eating at my expense.

I just shook my head “over the devastation” to the huge banana bunch that had been completely eaten by those ravenous creatures which will not farm.  That was concrete  evidence  that my farm labourers had not been visiting the farm for some time and repeatedly lied to me by mobile phone; one of the woes of an absentee farmer.

I moved on only to encounter an army of crabs also scurrying into their holes as I approached. The sheer sight was nerve calming, far greater than watching fish in an aquarium that I cannot afford!   Seeing these creatures in their natural habitat which has been created from my conscious decision to uphold the sanctity of the adjoining swamp was simply exciting in an era where their population is under threat from unsustainable environmental practices.

Momentarily, ideas started flowing into my head like whiskey in an elite club at East Legon over a pay day weekend.

It struck me that enormous dividends could be obtained for responsible extraction of natural resources, if only we commit to being good stewards of the environment.  Other farmers have called me derogatory names for fighting them to keep the sanctity of the water body.

It is disheartening that gradually; some farmers are having to carry drinking water to their farms as opposed to previously fetching this from freely flowing swift rivers and streams. These have become pale shadows of water bodies, sometimes not even fit for irrigation purposes. To think that this is happening despite  our higher education and understanding of human activities and their effect on erratic weather patterns defies comprehension!

Dealing with the galamsey scourge

Thoughts about the dire consequences of galamsey activities can be quite chilling. This is especially frightening when scientists warn about the possibility of the indiscriminate chemical usage being absorbed into the food chain through vegetables and other tuber crops to cause cancer related diseases.

The problems of the Ghana Water Company in not only getting enough water for treatment, but also forced to use more chemicals to treat the contaminated water for human consumption, is quite daunting.

From a farmer’s perspective, I believe the government could redeem its shame by engaging in massive afforestation schemes over the degraded lands. National service personnel could be deployed to reclaim these lands by planting tree crops.

Trees like teak, wawa, bamboo, oil palm and rubber plantations could be intensely planted after the army has been mobilised to cover the pits indiscriminately dug by the galamseyers.

It is hoped that, by their nature, these tree crops would not be affected by the cyanide and other harmful chemicals but could become economically beneficial in a few years to come.

As for the leaders who cannot purge themselves of greed and hypocrisy while Ghana is destroyed, they will have their ignoble places in history some day.

The gods  may not be  asleep, drunk or apathetic.  They  probably are being patient; preferring to strike at  an opportune time!

The writer is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, a former adjunct Lecturer at the National Banking College, a farmer and the author of “Risk Management in Banking” textbook. Email; [email protected]  Tel. 0244 324181

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