Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo smiles and waves from fading billboards in his hometown of Kyebi, in the Akyem Abuakwa area of the country’s Eastern Region. Nearby is another sign for the Atewa Range Forest Reserve, whose steep slopes and cloud-topped peaks rise from the fields of cassava and trees of ripening bananas and cocoa pods below.
“Save Atewa Forest Now!” it reads in a message to the president and his government in the capital Accra, 90 kilometres away.
The upland evergreen forest, with its waterfalls and cliffs, deep caves and valleys, has been described as one of the richest places for biodiversity on the planet. Its thick vegetation is home to endangered primates and pangolins, rare frogs, birds and butterflies.
But the ground also contains large deposits of bauxite, which gives the earth its distinctive red hue and is the essential component in aluminium production.
In a scenario familiar across Africa, China has promised Ghana billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure projects in exchange for access to mine the rock.
Environmentalists fear for the forest. Locals, though, are swayed by the prospects of jobs and money.
Akufo-Addo’s government is pushing a policy of “trade not aid” and rural development. All eyes are now on the president to see if that comes at the expense of the environment he has vowed to protect.
A team of forest rangers and volunteers carrying machetes to hack through the undergrowth currently polices the forest against poachers and illegal loggers.
The surrounding landscape bears scars of gold-mining activities that Akufo-Addo halted by introducing measures against illegal operations.
Campaigners, however, say mining bauxite is an even greater risk, as swathes of trees would have to be cut down and soil removed in the forest’s upper reaches.
Daryl Bosu, deputy national director of the environmental group A Rocha Ghana, said that could cause “big, big trouble”.
“The way bauxite mining is done is not like gold, where you can take out the sand, put it somewhere and fill it back,” he said.
“You are actually taking away the whole soil and with it you have to clear the forest to be able to get to that.” Deforestation raises the risk of landslides and pollution in the sources of three rivers providing water for communities downstream, including the five million people in Greater Accra. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
