Gold is booming. So is the dirty business of digging it up
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. “It keeps getting worse and worse," sighs Camry Tagoe, an activist in Accra, the capital. “If you look at Google maps, Ghana has turned from green to brown." Over the past month Mr Tagoe has helped organise protests across the city that call for an end to “galamsey", or wildcat gold mining.
Long a way of getting by in the west African country, it has exploded in recent years, damaging forests and polluting water. The protesters blame politicians, many of whom own mining firms, for letting the practice get out of control. Galamsey is a crucial issue ahead of elections on December 7th.
Ghana, the largest gold producer on the continent, exemplifies Africa’s new gold rush. The gold price has doubled since 2019, to a record high of more than $2,700 per troy ounce, promising higher margins for industrial miners but also encouraging more artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). Nearly half of the roughly 1,000 tonnes of gold produced in Africa every year is mined in this way.
It is the largest source of jobs in rural Africa, save for farming, so a sustained gold boom could mean higher incomes for some very poor people. At the same time it could damage ecosystems and people’s health. Much ASM is legal, but a lot is untaxed and unregulated.
In a report in May Swissaid, an NGO, estimated that the amount of smuggled gold more than doubled from 2012 to 2022. Once again, African states are missing out on the full benefits of a commodity boom. The latest rush has several new elements.
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