A journey to the future in 2057: the price of inaction on galamsey

By Albert ARHIN (Dr)

Earlier this year, the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) launched the “Vision 2057” document, outlining a long-term national development framework that will improve the living standards of Ghanaians and achieving upper-middle-income status by 2057.

This policy document presents a detailed vision of Ghana’s social, economic, and environmental progress by its 100th anniversary and defines the development goals needed to reach that milestone.

The vision is for Ghana to become “a free, just, prosperous, and self-reliant nation, ensuring the welfare and happiness of its citizens while playing a leading role in international affairs” by 2057. It emphasizes building a prosperous economy, promoting equitable social development, preserving the environment, and promoting effective governance.

As I step into the year 2057, my heart is, however, heavy. The Ghana I once knew—vibrant, lush, with rivers that glistened like a nation’s promise—is gone. What greets me instead is a land scarred by the consequences of our collective failure to act against illegal mining, galamsey.

The rivers are dry or toxic, the farmlands barren, and the faces of future generations, hollow with despair, stare back at me. This is not the Ghana we dreamt off. This is the price of our inaction.

In the cities, I see families struggling to access clean drinking water. Once plentiful rivers, such as the Pra and Ankobra, are now filled with mercury and cyanide—poisoned by years of illegal mining. Water tankers line the streets, where people stand for hours in endless queues, hoping for a few gallons of potable water.

It’s no longer a convenience; it’s a matter of life and death. Children are born with deformities, their bodies bearing the scars of toxins consumed even before they took their first breath.

Across both rural and urban areas, food insecurity is rampant. Farmlands that once fed our nation have been destroyed. In rural areas where cocoa trees stood tall, where the soil was rich with nutrients, all I see are gaping craters left behind by galamsey.

Our once-proud farmers, the backbone of our economy, have lost their livelihoods. The cocoa farms are gone, and with them, Ghana’s claim as a global leader in cocoa production. Hunger grips the nation, as local food production has crumbled under the weight of land degradation.

The air in this future is thick with hopelessness, but also with a crime wave that rivals any we’ve seen before. Unemployed youth, unable to farm or find meaningful work, turn to criminal activities. Theft, armed robbery, and violence plague communities.

I watch as the social fabric of the nation, once held together by solidarity, unravels. In this grim future, crime is not just a byproduct of poverty but a survival tactic in a land where opportunity is a fleeting memory.

Meanwhile, Ghana’s coffers, once filled with revenue from cocoa and legal gold mining, are empty. Illegal mining has siphoned off what should have been national wealth, leaving the government struggling to provide basic services. Health care, education, and infrastructure crumble as the economy weakens. Galamsey’s legacy has bled our nation dry—both literally and metaphorically.

I cannot help but weep for future generations, for children yet to be born into this wasteland. They will inherit a Ghana where our failure to act today has poisoned not just the rivers and the land but their futures as well.

They will ask why we stood by as galamsey ravaged their inheritance, why we allowed greed and short-term gains to outweigh the long-term survival of our nation. And what will we tell them?

We must understand that this future is not some distant possibility; it is already upon us. The signs are there—our rivers are drying up, farmlands are becoming infertile, and mercury levels are rising in our water systems.

The livelihoods of our farmers are in jeopardy. The youth, disillusioned by lack of opportunity, are turning to illegal mining for survival, while crime rates are already on the rise.

But it’s not too late to change the course of history. Now is the time to act.

Every single one of us—whether you are an urban dweller sipping bottled water in Accra or a farmer in a rural village seeing your crops fail—has a stake in this fight. The Ghana Police must be more vigilant, enforcing the laws with unflinching resolve. Chiefs, once the custodians of the land, must refuse to sell their people’s birthright for short-term wealth.

Political parties must unite, regardless of ideology, because the survival of our nation transcends politics. Teachers must educate our children not just on the dangers of galamsey but on the value of protecting their environment.

Professional groups—lecturers, lawyers, engineers, environmentalists—must lend their expertise to the fight. Civil society must rise, and every Ghanaian, whether urban or rural, young or old, must demand accountability from our leaders. We must demand laws that will not only punish offenders but also rehabilitate our land and protect our rivers. And we must demand it now.

Because if we don’t, we condemn our children to a future without clean water, without food, without hope. We condemn them to a Ghana where survival, not prosperity, is the only goal. The time to act is now. We owe it to the future. We owe it to Ghana. Let us rise. Let us act. Before it’s too late.

The writer is a Sustainability Consultant and a Research Fellow at the Bureau of Integrated Rural Development of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana. His email address is [email protected]

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