Mining, Environment and Community Conflicts: A Study of Company-Community Conflicts over Gold Mining in the Obuasi Municipality of Ghana (original) (raw)

2014, Journal of Sustainable Development Studies

The environm ent, its natural resources and developm ent capacity remains a contentious elem ent in the development process of human society. In Ghana, similarly as Africa and other developing countries, there is a huge dependence of environm ental resources for economic gr owth and development. Mining gold resources is directly engulfed in this environment and natural resource exploitation process. While mining companies capitalize on their contribution to developm ent and provision of social services, local communities refute and demand abrogation of large-scale gold mining on their "land". Through an informant data collection approach and secondary data collection, the study analyzes cases of com pany-community disputes over gold mining and the underpinning issues, the dispute resolution strategies, and the weakn esses in the existing fram ework. Cases of disputes centered on com pensation, resettlem ent packages, unfulfilled prom ises, mistrust and lack of alternative livelihoods for economically displaced groups. The dispute resolution strategy is also seen as being too bureaucratic, poorly connected to the cultural and social intricacies of local communities and primarily com pany oriented. The Study proposes the need for a new framework that considered communities as integral but not peripheral in the general national framework as well as sustaining and enhancing local alternative livelihoods and community led co-designed sustainable development plans.