Transcript:
The Inside Story: Nature Crimes
Episode 124 – December 28, 2023
Show Open:
This week on The Inside Story, we traveled to Ghana to investigate environmental crimes and those who are breaking the laws designed to protect the world in which we live.
Who is reporting on them and what is being done to stop them?
Now, on The Inside Story: Nature Crimes.
The Inside Story:
STEVE BARAGONA, VOA Correspondent:
Welcome to The Inside Story, I’m Steve Baragona hosting this week’s show from Ghana.
Nature crime — that’s illegal fishing, logging, mining and poaching — costs the world as much as 200 billion dollars per year in lost revenue and enforcement, according to the United Nations.
Today we’re going to take a look at nature crime happening here in Ghana...
Not because Ghana is unique. It’s not.
These crimes are happening all over the world.
And they are taking a toll not just on nature, but on the people who depend on it for food, water and livelihoods.
Today on, the Inside Story, nature crime.
Ghana's coastline is home to dozens of historic forts, castles and other UNESCO World Heritage sites. They are threatened by coastal erosion.
And illegal sand mining for construction is making the problem worse.
A photographer whose ancestral home has washed away is using photo exhibitions to raise awareness about the situation.
Senanu Tord reports from Ada, Ghana.
SENANU TORD, Reporting for VOA:
Along the coast of Ada in Ghana, photographer Ofoe Amegavie is taking photos of a ruined settlement. Occupants of this property were forced out after several tidal waves and coastal erosion demolished their homes and threatened their lives.
Amegavie says his ancestral home was once about a 15-minute walk away but has been completely submerged in the Gulf of Guinea.
Born and raised in the capital city of Accra, Amegavie moved back in 2019 to connect with his ancestry and heritage but he says there was nothing to show.
Ofoe Amegavie, Photographer:
Coming here, trying to trace some of the stories my dad told me, I now came to realize why most of his stories were coming from the past and not necessarily present continuous, but he was always referring to the past. It was due to the fact that his home was not existing anymore. Where he was born and raised wasn’t existing anymore because of the effect of coastal erosion.
SENANU TORD:
According to UNESCO, Ghana's coastline is eroding at an average rate of about 2 meters per year with some sites recording up to 17 meters of erosion in a single year. Between 2005 and 2017 alone, the country lost about 37 percent of its coastal land to erosion and flooding.
Coastal residents say the erosion rate has increased even further in the last two years.
John Kusimi is a senior lecturer at the Department of Geography and Resource Management at the University of Ghana. He says rising sea levels and climate change are increasing the frequency of tidal waves along the Ghanaian coast.
Kusimi says the situation is made worse by increased sand mining, mostly for construction needs.
Dr. John Kusimi, Lecturer, University of Ghana:
We have a lot of human activities such as sand mining, dredging, and also the harvesting of vegetative cover, mangroves in particular along the coastline. These activities tend to reduce the resilience of the beach or the coastline to erosion.
SENANU TORD:
Sand mining along the beaches of Ghana is illegal and punishable by law, but Kusimi says the country’s boom in tourism and real estate along waterfronts has created a new market for the practice.
Dr. John Kusimi, Lecturer, University of Ghana:
Because of the presence of security within the major cities, they go a little bit far off away, the periurban localities and mine and bring the sand into the cities to develop. So you see a lot of hotels, estate developers, and resource centers that are developing along the beaches and coastline, and most of them often mine beach material illegally to use in their building and construction.
SENANU TORD:
Through a recent photo exhibition titled “Between Sand and Water” and an upcoming exhibit in northern Ghana, Amegavie hopes to draw more attention to the ailing state of coastal communities and its effect on coastal biodiversity.
Senanu Tord for VOA news, Ada, Ghana.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Another busy morning at a fishing harbor in Tema, just outside Ghana's capital, Accra. Fishermen like Yasil Arafat Ali, say this year is the worst in a long string of bad years.
Yasil Arafat Ali, Fisherman:
What we have seen this year is quite different from all other years. Though we started seeing problems about 15, 20 years back, this year was a very mess.
STEVE BARAGONA:
The small fish that are a cornerstone of the Ghanaian diet are getting harder and harder to find.
Nana Jojo Solomon, Ghana National Canoe Fishermen Council:
If care is not taken, the artisanal fishery will certainly collapse. In actual fact, it is on the verge of imminent collapse.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Nana Jojo Solomon heads the Ghana National Canoe Fishermen Council, the association representing the artisanal fishermen. He says they know their catches and livelihoods are at risk. So, new government regulations are mostly welcome.
Nana Jojo Solomon, Ghana National Canoe Fishermen Council:
I think government is now focusing on the industry, as the total neglect in the past years.
Richard Yeboah, Ghana Fisheries Commission:
It comes back to so many canoes chasing after [the] very few stock[s] of fish that we have. And that is the challenge that we want to try to control now.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Richard Yeboah ((pron. yeh-BOH-ah)) heads enforcement for Ghana's Fisheries Commission. He says the government closes the ports for a month each year to help the fish populations recover. And it recently put a cap on the number of fishing canoes.
Ashitey Ishmael, Fisherman:
Too much of everything is bad. So, the idea of the government is good, to minimize the canoes.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Fishermen like Ishmael Ishmael approve, but they say the bigger problem is illegal fishing by Chinese trawlers.
Ashitey Ishmael, Fisherman:
Even if we reduce a certain number and still the trawlers are doing what they are doing, it is meaningless.
Richard Yeboah, Ghanaian Fisheries Commission:
To a large extent, the trawlers have their portion of the blame. Yes, definitely. They are contributing to the illegal fishing activities.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Yeboah says that's why a new electronic monitoring system will soon keep watch on the trawlers.
Richard Yeboah, Ghanaian Fisheries Commission:
All the vessels that will be given license to fish. They are all going to have video on them. You agree with me that video is such that you can't hide from it, if you are conducting illegality and you are caught.
STEVE BARAGONA:
But he says the small-scale fishermen are part of the problem, too.
Richard Yeboah, Ghanaian Fisheries Commission:
Some of them, we hear, they also use dynamite. And then some of them — recently, we hear that some of them are even using detergents also to fish. So, when you look at the fleets that we have, from the artisanal through to the industrial, they all have a part to play as far as illegalities are concerned.
STEVE BARAGONA:
There are glimmers of hope that the government's measures are helping fish populations recover. But it will take years to know if more is needed. That means more tough years ahead for Ghana's fishermen.
Mining is illegal in Ghana’s forest reserves. Rivers running through the reserves provide food and drinking water for people downstream.
But the Ghanaian parliament passed a law last year regulating mining activity in the country’s forests.
Environmentalists say it has essentially legalized the practice. And biodiversity reserves that were protected are now threatened.
They’re petitioning the government to repeal the law.
Senanu Tord brings us this story from Atewa, Ghana.
SENANU TORD:
Ghana’s Atewa Range Forest Reserve is a globally significant biodiversity area, as designated by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
The forest is home to about five critically endangered species, including the white-naped mangabey. The reserve is also the source of three important rivers that provide water to more than 5 million Ghanaians.
Yaa Korang lives around the Atewa, and she used to get her water from streams in the forest reserve. She says in the last five years, illegal mining and tree logging in and around the forest have ruined these bodies of water.
Yaa Korang, Lives Near Atewa:
Growing up, we always drank water from the streams that came from the forest — the Anyinasu, Asuakor and Adensu. They were very clear streams. But over the past five or six years, they have all been heavily polluted, and we can't even drink or cook with the water from these streams. Even the water running in the taps has been contaminated by this illegal mining, and we can't use it for anything.
In 2018, the government of Ghana signed a deal with a Chinese state-run company, Sinohydro Corporation Limited, to mine bauxite from the forest, an action that environmental advocates say is illegal and risks the lives of over 100 threatened or near-extinct species.
Although the official mining of bauxite in the forest has not begun, communities that live around the reserve say the forest has been under attack since the deal was signed.
Emmanuel Tabi, Concerned Citizens of Atewa Landscape:
People are mining seriously within the forest. There illegal logging that is also going on. And the third issue is because the traditional lands that we farm on have been used for gold mining, people are entering the forest to farm.
SENANU TORD:
In an attempt to police their forest reserve, Tabi and his community-based organization have attempted to block road access to the forest to prevent access to trucks.
They also criticize the government for not enforcing forest protection laws or prosecuting people who engage in what Tabi calls galamsey, the local term for illegal mining.
Emmanuel Tabi, Concerned Citizens of Atewa Landscape:
We think that the government is intentionally looking elsewhere and allowing these galamsey people to destroy the forest so that they will use that as an excuse or pretense to say that, ‘Oh, the forest has already been destroyed, so if we are going to mine bauxite, why not?’
SENANU TORD:
In November 2022, the government of Ghana passed a law, called the Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) Regulation.
Environmental advocates say this law gives the presidency power to authorize mining in forest reserves that were supposed to be under government protection.
They say an older law and guidelines for mining production in forests exempted globally significant biodiversity reserves, whereas this law targets them.
Daryl Bosu, A Rocha Ghana:
It is not in line with our commitment to climate action towards mitigation and deforestation actions. It is not in line with Ghana’s recently signed GBF, that is the global biodiversity framework agreement which is seeking to create a safe haven for biodiversity to exist and our GSBAs are not only for biodiversity, but they are also for the provision of crucial ecosystem services.
SENANU TORD:
The government of Ghana declined to speak with VOA about the mining law, despite several requests.
Civil society groups continue to petition the government to repeal the law and protect the country’s forest reserves.
Senanu Tord for VOA News, Atewa, Ghana.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Beginning in 2010, Chinese miners, known as the 'Shanglin gang,' surged into Ghana's lucrative illegal gold mining business…
…spawning conflicts between the Chinese nationals ...
...and local communities, who accuse them of polluting the environment.
Attempts to crack down have strained relations between Accra and Beijing.
Illegal mining — by Chinese nationals and by locals — is a major cause of pollution in Ghana.
To learn more, I spoke with Erastus Asare Donkor, a journalist here in Ghana, who has dedicated himself to covering the consequences of illegal mining.
Erastus Asare Donkor, Ghanaian Journalist:
As we speak, almost every major river across Ghana is highly polluted.
So if you look at it, you're talking about above 8000 highly polluted rivers and water bodies.
The source of the pollution and all along the riverbed. You can see irresponsible mining, when I say responsible mining, some of them you see that this set up the washing via the edge of the river. They wash directly everything into the river they use the river as a wash and be diverted pump it from the water source wants you leaves into the river and pumps water onto the rock the washes back into the river.
We have spoken to a number of scientists who also draw links between soil contamination interest Yabo was for example, and the kind of food grown in these areas to the market. So we have gone into all that and also fish samples from these polluted rivers to test other laboratories.
So far we are seeing high levels of chromium, arsenic, and in some cases, lead and cadmium, which of course is very poisonous. to human health depending on the concentrations that you have.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Who is doing this mining. Is it local people? Is it people from outside the country?
Erastus Donkor:
Both. Now, the situation on the ground is that the local people some of whom own the land, do not have the money or equipment to do the mind. So they fall on more Chinese nationals who come in with us covetous, the bulldozers, and others to mind the technology to mind some of the monies the sponsorship comes from very powerful people in society. Those who live in the big cities in Accra, Kumasi, and others who fund and sponsor these activities on the ground. They also provide protection for the people to mine in on designated areas Forest Reserve as one time along with bodies and so, while they provide a sponsorship, these people also go in there and mind. Now there is an interesting twist because there is the security at the local level. They are powerless in arresting these illegalities. They are illegal It is alright but they cannot go in arrest anybody you arrest them. The big man up there will call to the ground and you have to release them.
STEVE BARAGONA:
How do you describe this when you think about what's happening here?
Erastus Donkor:
I describe it as cruelty. Because the person who is washing his recipe into there, the person who's sitting directly on everybody's mind knows the health effects, but he's doing it anyway. Sometimes we speak to some of them and they know but they don't care. That is cruelty.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Are there many other reporters in Ghana who are doing the kind of work that you're doing?
Erastus Donkor:
Myself and some few others who but when you talk about going deep into the handle and so far while I've been doing it, there are a couple of journalists also doing other things.
This is about you, your family.
So what we do today will affect the ones we love.
Whether now or in the future.
And it's hard time we have to come together to do something about you're talking about people with power.
You're talking about people with money. Is this is this dangerous?
Erastus Donkor:
Highly dangerous.
Highly dangerous.
But what is more dangerous than knowing very well that the child you are trying to raise today will in the near future not get quality water to drink or die of an ailment that he's not even aware of?
And that's what keeps some of us going.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Have there been times when you've been afraid for your own safety?
\
Erastus Donkor:
Yes, many times even now.
STEVE BARAGONA:
What's that like for you?
Erastus Donkor:
It’s disturbing and at the same time you look at what will happen if you don't do it.
I feel that the more we talk about it the more the problem is lessened in a way what we are seeing now who would have been worse if nobody was talking about it. We're now getting the evidence to bring to the people to show them to see that this is what is really happening.
STEVE BARAGONA:
We’ve spent much of this show in West Africa, but nature crime is very much a global issue.
Media organizations are investing more resources into investigative reporting on how industry and illegal activity affect local communities on the front lines of environmental damage.
We visited the Rainforest Fund to explore those efforts.
Illegal trades in fishing and mining threaten the Amazon’s rich biodiversity, and the communities — and the reporters — who expose nature crime taking place there.
We have this story from Brazil.
CRISTINA CAICEDO SMIT, VOA Correspondent:
The world’s largest rainforest — the Amazon — is known for its rich biodiversity. But illegal mining, fishing and logging all pose a threat to its future.
Journalists from across the world travel to Brazil to report on how such activity affects the rainforest and the communities who call it home.
But reporting from the region presents unique challenges, says Artur Romeu of media watchdog Reporters Without Borders or RSF.
Artur Romeu, RSF Latin America Director:
Doing journalism in this region involves large costs and logistical complexities. So, it's expensive to do journalism and it's difficult to understand the micro dynamics of conflicts that are occurring in these different territories.
CRISTINA CAICEDO SMIT:
Those conflicts range from small issues affecting very localized communities to cases of national interest, says Romeu.
Artur Romeu, RSF Latin America Director:
Socio-environmental issues, issues of agrarian conflicts, issues related to human rights violations, issues related to cases of corruption on a mainly local scale with national coverage.
CRISTINA CAICEDO SMIT:
Understanding the political and economic complexities — and the factors driving tensions is key.
Failure to do so can expose journalists to threats, aggression, and arbitrary prosecution.
Between June 2022 to June of this year, RSF documented 66 press freedom violations in Brazil’s Amazon states.
But the killing in 2022 of journalist Dom Phillips and the indigenous people expert Bruno Pereira brought the dangers media confront to the world’s attention.
The impact of their case is the focus of the documentary “Reports of a War Correspondent in the Amazon,” co-directed by journalist Ana Aranha.
Ana Aranha, Brazilian Journalist:
We went with a documentary crew to film this moment of shock and realization that we are also in the crosshairs, and that we are risking our lives.
CRISTINA CAICEDO SMIT:
A project coordinator at the media and advocacy nonprofit Repórter Brasil, Aranha has covered the Amazon for more than 14 years. She knows better than most the intricacies — and risks — of working in the region.
Ana Aranha, Brazilian Journalist:
You have to spend a week there to be able to tell the story of the indigenous people, maybe more. And violence, too, is increasingly a problem.
CRISTINA CAICEDO SMIT:
The Phillips case changed how media cover the region, says Aranha.
Ana Aranha, Brazilian journalist:
We started to increase our security protocol and we started to avoid doing a series of things that we did before, for example, speaking to people while on the ground.
CRISTINA CAICEDO SMIT:
Romeu of RSF says he has noticed efforts by indigenous communities to fill gaps in coverage, using technology to create networks and collectives.
Artur Romeu, RSF Latin America director:
Doing journalism today in the Amazon is an exercise of resistance and resilience. It is fundamental for the future, not only of Brazil as a society and a democracy, but is fundamental for the future of the world.
CRISTINA CAICEDO SMIT:
As scientists sound the alarm on the destruction of the Amazon eco-system, the work of environmental journalists will remain crucial, says Romeu.
Cristina Caicedo Smit, VOA News.
STEVE BARAGONA:
Ghana is the world's second-largest producer of cocoa. And on our way out, we'd like to share with you a special treat we picked up here: a trip to a chocolate factory.
Thanks for joining us on this special edition of The Inside Story from Ghana.
Before we go, I want to say thank you to everyone on the production team, both here in Ghana and in Washington, who made today's episode possible.
I'm Steve Baragona.
You can follow me on X at @stevebaragona and on Instagram at @baragonasteve
You can also catch up on past episodes on our free streaming service, VOA Plus.
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We'll be back next week with another episode of The Inside Story.
Thanks for tuning in.
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