The Media Coalition Against Galamsey and OccupyGhana are urging the enactment of a law that explicitly prohibits the issuance of mining or drilling permits, licenses, leases, or any associated activities in all forest reserves and significant biodiversity areas across the country.

As a result, the two advocacy groups are calling on Parliament to rescind “the Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) Regulations (LI 2462),” including the authority it grants to the President to grant written approval for mining activities in globally significant biodiversity areas in the national interest.

In a joint statement issued on Friday, the two organizations expressed the belief that the existence of LI 2462 played a role in empowering High Street Company’s application to mine in the Kakum Forest in the Central region.

The statement read, “We believe that Ghana needs a simple legislative fiat that says ‘WE DO NOT MINE OR DRILL IN OUR FOREST RESERVES.’ We therefore invite Parliament, as a matter of urgency, to pass an Act that forbids the grant of any mining or drilling permit, licence or lease or any other associated activities in all forest reserves and significant biodiversity areas.”

To prevent the government from circumventing the objectives of the proposed law by merely revoking the status of current forest reserves, the groups recommended that decisions on forest reserve cessation should be made, first, based on the advice of the Forestry Commission and Lands Commission, and second, with the approval of Parliament after a public hearing and engagement with the local chiefs and residents of the affected area. This would necessitate amending the Forest Act, 1927 (Cap 157) to remove the President’s power to do so through an Executive Instrument.

The statement also called for the explicit revocation of the Forests (Cessation of Forest Reserve) Instrument (EI 144 of 2022), which purported to revoke the forest reserve status of the Achimota Forest.