From carats to karats: explaining the shift from diamond to gold mining by artisanal miners in Ghana

Abstract

Over the course of the past half-decade, artisanal miners in Ghana’s major alluvial diamond fields of Akwatia have shifted to gold mining or a combination of gold and diamond mining. What accounts for such an unprecedented transition in the country’s artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector? Drawing upon in-person interviews and observations conducted in Ghana’s mining regions, the article identifies two primary explanatory factors for this shift. First, the cessation of large-scale diamond mining in the country has witnessed the transformation of Akwatia’s small-scale diamond miners into small-scale gold miners. Second, the temporary ban upon Ghanaian exports of diamonds in late-2006 and the implementation of more stringent production and export regulations under the auspices of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme have increased the costs of small-scale diamond mining. Moreover, several abetting factors such as favourable geological terrain, the increasing number of informal partnerships struck among customary land owners and illegal artisanal miners, soaring gold prices, and the rising input costs of diamond mining have accelerated this change in Ghana’s artisanal small-scale mining sector. Unable to obtain alternative employment, artisanal miners have successfully adapted to the changes in the regulatory and economic environments and, in doing so, have set in motion self-sustaining dynamics that have significantly transformed the political economy of mining in Ghana. Specifically, the changing patterns of mining have resulted in an increased use of mercury by artisanal workers and concomitant environmental degradation; the weakening of the regulatory framework of the Kimberley Process that oversees diamond mining in Ghana; the modest recovery of the livelihoods of mining communities; an increase in the net migration into the mineral-rich region of Akwatia; and the development of innovative artisanal mining technologies.