Daniel Ewoo, a collaborative resource management officer of AROCHA GHANA, has called for the enforcement of laws which frown against illegal mining popularly called ‘ galamsey’.
In an interview on Spice FM, Mr. Ewoo said that enforcing the laws is the best approach to curbing the heightened rate of illegal mining in the country, which is destroying lands and water bodies.
He, however, opted for the shoot-and-kill approach to discourage citizens from further deteriorating forest reserves as well as water bodies.
” I’m not speaking for the organization, I’m speaking for myself, I think the best approach should also be shoot-and-kill. If we shoot and kill, people will take cues from it, But in the current parliament who is going to push that rule, ?” He questioned.
According to him, the law enforcers are the very people breaking the laws, citing the extortion of monies from illegal miners, which he believes is a worrying event.
Mr. Ewoo questioned the commitment to carry out such an approach in helping to stamp out the illegal mining menace.
To restore the damaged lands and water bodies, Mr. Ewoo, revealed that it would take 400 years for them to return to their normal state.
” Research has shown that, if a river goes extinct, it takes 400 years for that water to recover. Because the water contained some microorganisms which depend on the river body, so once their habitat is destabilized it will take that long number of years to get it back to its normal original state, This is how serious the situation is,”
” For the land restoration, it takes not less than 10 years for the heavy metals such as lead, mercury amongst others to sync back to their original position. With that, we’d have to use Phyto remediation, where we plant trees to extract the poisonous chemicals from the surface of the land,”
