Stakeholders propose special military unit for forest protection

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Forestry Commission, Dr Hugh Brown, has called for the setting up of a special unit in the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) for the protection of the country’s forest reserves against illegal miners.

He said the destruction of forest reserves by heavily armed illegal miners had reached an alarming proportion, requiring the deployment of the military to safeguard the resource, about 30 of which are globally significant biodiversity areas (GSBA).

Dr Brown said the current approach where the military were deployed sparingly to flush out illegal miners from forest reserves was no longer effective because the perpetrators of the illegality had become more sophisticated in their modus operandi.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Dr Brown explained that the country had “reached the point where we have armed thugs who are not miners but who make their services available to be hired by whoever is able to pay; they dress up with guns and mount barriers to prevent Forestry Commission officials from having access to forest reserves”.

“Many of the thugs who are causing this mayhem are from neighbouring countries; so it has become organised crime, and we need to fight it with the urgency it deserves before things get out of hand,” he said.

“If Ghana can send contingent across Africa and the world to keep peace, we should be able to send some soldiers to keep peace internally because we have a situation where there are external aggressors,” he stressed.

Dr Brown added that the illegal mining situation in forest reserves also required permanent military deployment because it was a serious national security threat.

He said the call for military deployment was not to suggest that they should be sent to all the 288 forest reserves, but rather to hotspots for galamsey and illegal logging.

Context

Over the years, the Forestry Commission has used several strategies to protect the 288 forest reserves from destruction, including the periodic deployment of the military to flush out illegal miners and loggers.

The sustainability of that approach has been put to critical test as heavily armed illegal miners have completely taken over some of the forest reserves with impunity.

Currently, it is estimated that over 5,200 hectares of the area in 44 forest reserves have been destroyed by the illegal miners.

Against that backdrop, a former Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Collins Dauda, called for the setting up of a permanent unit in the military to protect the forest reserves.

Alhaji Dauda made the call at a conference on responsible small-scale mining organised by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources on February 26, this year, for Members of Parliament (MPs) and other stakeholders to deliberate on methods to adopt to curb the galamsey menace.

The Asutifi South Member of Parliament (MP) stressed that given that illegal miners were increasingly getting weaponised and threatening the rapid response team of the Forestry Commission, it was important for the government to deploy the military as a long-term measure to secure the forest reserves.

He further said that the incessant use of sophisticated weapons by illegal miners to have their way to mine in forest reserves portended dire national security challenges, and as such the situation needed superior military approach to restore sanity. 

Good proposal

In the Daily Graphic’s interview with Dr Brown, he said the proposal for a permanent military unit for forest protection was a progressive solution to tackle illegal mining — commonly called galamsey — in forest reserves.

He stressed that the military had superior weapons and were better trained to deal with external aggressors.

“The Forestry Commission does not have the strength or fire power to match them, so we have relied on the elements of surprise and speed. Usually, when we take them unawares, they flee and we move in to demobilise their excavators and leave within one hour before they re-mobilise and come back.

“They studied our strategy and decided to block our access to the forest reserves by mounting barriers so that when we are struggling with their security guys, they can move the excavators out or call for reinforcement to stop us,” he said.

Resource Forestry Commission

While acknowledging that the current state of galamsey in forest reserves required immediate deployment of the military to flush out the miscreants, the Deputy National Director of A-Rocha Ghana, Daryl Bosu, said the sustainable thing to do was to fully resource the Forestry Commission to carry out its core mandate of safeguarding the country’s forest resources.

“Compliance is key, but dealing with this issue of galamsey is not necessarily about setting up a unit within the military. It requires comprehensive measures that even ensures that at the policy level, nobody acts in a way that gives people the mindset that they can mine in forest reserves,” he stressed.

Mr Bosu added that any support the state had in terms of vehicles, vests, body cameras, and working gear must be given to the Forestry Commission to bolster their operations, especially the rapid response team.

“We need to significantly resource the Forestry Commission in a manner that even when they see one individual enter the reserve, they can take the necessary action.

This will forestall the situation where issues fester and become pervasive to the point that make them difficult to deal with.

If the Forestry Commission is well-resourced, we will not even get to the point where we have to bring in the military,” he said.