The Media Coalition Against Galamsey and OccupyGhana are demanding the promulgation of a law that forbids the grant of any mining or drilling permit, licence or lease or any other associated activities in all forest reserves and significant biodiversity areas in the country.

Consequently, the two bodies have asked Parliament to revoke “the Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) Regulations (LI 2462), and the power it gives to the President to give written approval 'to a mining company to undertake mining activity in a globally significant biodiversity area in the national interest.”

The two bodies in a statement they jointly issued Friday, said they believe that the sheer existence of LI 2462 is what emboldened an application by High Street Company to mine in the Kakum Forest in the Central region.

“We believe that Ghana needs a simple legislative fiat that says 'WE DO NOT MINE OR DRILL IN OUR FOREST RESERVES.' We therefore invite Parliament, as a matter of urgency, to pass an Act that forbids the grant of any mining or drilling permit, licence or lease or any other associated activities in all forest reserves and significant biodiversity areas.”

“And to ensure that Government does not evade the aims of the proposed law by simply revoking the status of current forest reserves, we recommend that any decision on the cessation of forest reserves should be, first, on the advice of the Forestry Commission and Lands Commission, and, second, with the approval of Parliament after a public hearing and engagement with the chiefs and the people of the area in question. This would require the amendment of the Forest Act, 1927 (Cap 157) to take away the power of the President to do this simply by issuing an Executive Instrument. To this end we also demand the express revocation of the ill-fated Forests (Cessation of Forest Reserve) Instrument (EI 144 of 2022), which purported to revoke the forest reserve status of the Achimota Forest.”

Below is the full statement issued by the two bodies.