IMPLICATIONS OF AZUMAH MINING ACTIVITIES ON LAND BASED LIVELIHOODS IN THE NADOWLI-KALEO DISTRICT OF THE UPPER WEST REGION

Abstract

The study looked at the implications of Azumah's mining activities on land based livelihoods in the Nadowli-Kaleo District in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Mining activities in Ghana expanded from the initial concentration in Western and Ashanti to almost all regions after the country assumed liberal economic policies facilitated by the Britain Wood Institutions. The sector's contribution to the socio-economic development of the country cannot be discounted. However, the sector also has a natural proclivity of an overlapping and conflicting uses regarding the only immobile factor of production-land, with host communities' livelihoods on one side and commercial transnational mining companies on the other. Thus, this study analyzed the implications of mining activities on land based livelihoods in the Nadowli-Kaleo District in the Upper West Region as a case study. The study utilized a mixed method design (qualitative and quantitative) and collected data from various sources (both primary and secondary). The findings revealed that, multiple land based livelihoods exist in the study area namely food crop farming, livestock/poultry rearing, different uses of economic trees/plants, hunting and fishing. However, these land based livelihoods had variously been impacted by mining activities with food crop farming and different uses of economic trees/plants as the most affected. Inhabitants ascribed loss of land, destruction of shrines of rain gods, destruction of economic trees, and lack of access to economic trees/plant to the activities of Azumah Resource Limited. This has led to reduction in food availability and income because food crop farming and economic trees/plants constituted the major sources of food and income respectively. Inhabitants adopted illegal mining and migration among others as their coping mechanisms to the changing livelihood structure. The study therefore recommended that, key actors in the mining sector should promote and develop an integrated land use plan to recognised the competing land demands.