Galamsey has poisoned water and soil
Over 6 million Ghanaians live with contaminated water and poisoned land. Rivers once full of life now run orange with mercury. Farmland that fed generations now grows toxic crops. Children miss school to fetch water that still makes them sick. Communities watch their land die under toxic sludge. We're here to reverse it—restoring soil and water together, because one cannot heal without the other.
WARNING
Ghana's Rivers Are Dying—And 6 Million+ People With Them
Galamsey—Ghanaian Pidgin for "gather and sell"—was once small-scale traditional mining practiced sustainably for a thousand years. That changed when foreign operators introduced heavy machinery, mercury amalgamation, and cyanide processing.
The destruction is total: 60% of Ghana's water bodies are contaminated or destroyed (Ghana Water Resources Commission). Rivers like the Pra, Ankobra, Offin, and Birim—waterways that sustained communities for generations—are biologically dead (NBC News, Oct 2024). The soil beneath them is saturated with mercury, lead, arsenic, and cadmium.
Mercury levels reach 130-150 times above safe limits. Arsenic contamination is over 4,000% above WHO standards in some areas (Ghana EPA/Pure Earth Study, 2025). What poisons the water poisons the land.
The contamination doesn't stay put. Mercury leeches from rivers into soil, from soil into groundwater, from groundwater into food crops, and from food crops into the bodies of those who eat them. Six million+ Ghanaians now live with contaminated water and poisoned land (Wilson Center). Ghana's state water utility has warned the country may need to import water by 2030 if current trends continue.
The health toll is devastating. Mercury crosses the blood-brain barrier and the placental barrier—poisoning developing brains and unborn babies. Children in galamsey regions are showing cognitive deficits, delayed speech development, and IQ loss (Ghana Paediatric Society). Doctors report children now requiring dialysis due to mercury poisoning, with mercury pellets visible in X-rays (Ghana Parliament, Oct 2025). Birth defects—including neural tube defects and limb deformities—are rising in mining communities (CNN Investigation). An entire generation is being contaminated before they take their first breath.
This crisis doesn't stop at Ghana's borders. These poisoned rivers flow into the Atlantic Ocean, carrying mercury and heavy metals into the global marine ecosystem. What starts in a galamsey pit ends in the food chain we all share. Contaminated fish from Ghana's coastal waters show mercury levels exceeding WHO limits—fish that enter international markets.
If we don't start this work today, we're not just abandoning Ghana—we're guaranteeing a future where this contamination is everywhere, in everything, irreversible. The rivers flow to the ocean. The ocean feeds the world. The world includes you. We have the plan. We have the team. We don't have time—and we can't do this alone. We need you.
Track Illegal Mining in Real Time
See the growing spread of galamsey across Ghana. This interactive map reveals hotspots, destroyed waterways, and areas most at risk. Stay informed, stay aware, and help amplify the call for action. This is what the data doesn't show you
HOW WE GOT HERE & WHY IT'S SO HARD TO FIX
For a thousand years, Ghanaians mined gold sustainably. The Ashanti Kingdom built legendary wealth while forests stayed lush and rivers ran clear. What you see today—the destruction, the poison, the death—is not African tradition. It's exploitation imported in the early 2000s and left behind for Ghanaians to survive.
WHY THEY CAN'T JUST STOP
Understanding why galamsey persists requires understanding poverty. In affected regions, unemployment exceeds 40%. A galamsey miner earns $20-30 daily—triple what formal jobs pay, if those jobs even exist.
For a father watching his children go hungry, the choice between slow starvation and immediate cash isn't a choice at all.
Government crackdowns have failed. Military raids, arrests, burned equipment—none of it works. Shut down one site, three more open deeper in the forest. Mercury amalgamation releases hundreds of tonnes of poison into Ghana's environment annually, but it continues because desperate people have no alternatives.
You cannot arrest poverty. You cannot enforce your way out of survival.
WHY CONVENTIONAL REMEDIATION WON'T WORK
Traditional approaches demand billion-dollar budgets, decades-long timelines, and infrastructure Ghana just doesn't have. They're designed for wealthy nations, dependent on foreign contractors and imported technology, and treat communities as problems to manage rather than partners in restoration.
The typical price tag: $15-20 billion. The timeline: 30-50 years.
The track record for developing countries: conventional techniques are "no longer sustainable and are ineffective in rehabilitating abandoned mining sites, especially in developing countries."
We're not waiting for someone else to solve a $15 billion crisis. Ghana lacks the infrastructure for environmental restoration—so we're building a lean, agile operation designed to create measurable impact where it matters most. Every resource is maximized, every effort is intentional, and every outcome is tracked. This isn't charity for charity's sake. This is results-driven restoration.This model isn't theoretical. It's been proven.
In Canada, the Bralorne-Takla mercury mine was fully remediated by 2017—hazardous waste removed, site revegetated, ecosystem restored.
The Colomac Mine remediation entered into engineering awards and delivered 75% of employment to Indigenous communities.
In Australia, the Orica Botany project recovered 1,200 kg of mercury from contaminated soil between 2013-2017. Kalgoorlie's gold operations cut mercury emissions by 97% in a single decade.
In California, the Gambonini Mercury Mine demonstrated that consolidating waste and deploying hydrologic controls works.
Globally, UNEP's planetGOLD programme has prevented over 31 tonnes of mercury emissions and supported 17,200+ miners transitioning to mercury-free methods across Burkina Faso, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Kenya.
The technology exists. The methods are proven. What's missing is deployment in Ghana.
Your donation doesn't disappear into a decades-long timeline. It launches the first sites that bring proven remediation to Ghana.
The Clock Is Ticking
Every day this crisis continues, more mercury seeps into the soil. More children drink poisoned water. More farmland dies. The damage doesn't pause while the world debates solutions.
The technology exists. The model is proven. What's missing is deployment—and that starts with you.
Your donation doesn't fund another study or another decade of planning. It puts proven remediation equipment on the ground in Ghana. It trains local operators who stay long after we leave. It launches the first sites that prove this model works here.
