1-4/4 Chinese miners

At first, we sought out Chinese miners. The government was getting them to self-deport or be expelled. These guys were in hiding. Signs of the Chinese and mining were easily found. “Beware sodium cyanide convey” on this lorry hints at Chinese connection to gold, revealing too the movement of mining goods.

1-2/3 Following the Chinese

We moved to areas the Chinese had been mining. After violent clashes with local miners, military operations removed them. Abandoned equipment, areas deserted.

3/3 A Chinese mining camp

Well organized, an orderly workflow and dormitories. Well defended too, a 14-foot deep moat surrounds the camp, preventing local miners from stealing gold. Used shotgun shells tell a story.

1-4/4 Local miners take over Chinese sites

I realized we had to look at ourselves as Ghanaians and not just blame the Chinese. Who owns land and has access to land is at the heart of many matters. We connected to local miners who had moved into Chinese sites and pits. See, a miner with a homemade “coolie” hat.

1-6/6 Portraits

Miners exhausted. Bringing up ore, sitting in the presence of a gold buyer, a woman labourer, curled on the ground asleep, a gold nugget. Making so little from hard, hard labor.

1-2/3 Mobilities

Taking photos and observing one is aware of mobility – machines moving, people moving, gold moving. The military were still around so locals were going to the abandoned Chinese mines in a clandestine way. This miner is returning home at the end of the day, I took the picture from an abandoned excavator pond as he passed.

3/3 Diggers

Heavy machinery is now used by small-scale miners, with serious effects on the environment. This led us to explore forests to see how they have been affected by mining.

1/7 River Prah

The largest river in Ghana looks so tranquil. Looks are deceptive; it has come to a standstill as result of the use of dredgers brought in by the Chinese.

2/7 Derelict mine building

Going into the forest, we encountered buildings of early European mining companies, now derelict.

3/7 Forest mining

The richness and beauty of a relatively undestroyed forest environment stand in contrast to the impact mining has wrecked on other areas.

1-4/4 Mining encroachment

From forests affected by mining, we turned attention to non-mining people affected by mining. Here, private residences on registered property are being encroached upon. Local miners gave warnings and then started excavating. This man went to court to stop the miners and won his case, but to no avail, they continued mining.

1/6 Prestea Gold Fields School

From the nineteenth century, Prestea grew up as the first colonial gold mining town in Ghana. So much wealth has flowed from this area, but yet local development remains so limited. This dilapidated school sign seems to illustrate these inequalities.

2/6 Portrait of boy

This boy was not attending school at the time this photograph was made.

3/6 Dried out borehole

Many communities are affected by the lack of  water supply due to exploitation of water resources by large and small-scale mining operations. This young girl stands by a community borehole pump whose well has dried up.

4/6 Bonsa Basic Academy

Joe Danka who came to Gbane in 2000 to prospect for gold. On realizing there were no schools available for the children in the community, he set aside his ambitions to mine gold and focused on building and establishing the school.

5/6 Bonsa Basic Academy

Students in one of the three classrooms.

6/6 Head teacher of Bonsa Basic Academy

Originally from Obuasi, Alfred King Sharpstone, popularly known as Nana, moved to Gbane to mine gold twenty years ago. He was one of the first teachers/miners at the school and now dedicates his full time teaching at the school. He is seen sitting in front of his house.

1/3 Portrait: miner and his wife

I took this photo of a gold miner and his wife some years ago. In 2020, I returned to look for him and discovered he had passed. His wife is now married to another miner. I was told that when widowed women try to remarry another miner.

2/3 Portrait: bereaved family

This family lost their 11 and 13-year-old boys in a mine accident. They were playing in an open pit, which caved in. By the family’s account, these excellent school students became the first non-mining causalities from a mine accident in this community.

3/3 Portrait: a female mine gang

These women worked as a gang, mining a pit together. They did this to generate income to manage their families. They were the only female gang I met anywhere in the country.

1-6/6 Portraits: gold miners

I took these portraits in Kibi. They are of a mixture of local Ghanaian and migrant miners from Niger, and in the last photo from Burkina Faso.

1/3 Notes from the field

Portrait of a woman and her son. She works with a gang of miners carrying 50-60 kg bags of ore from the mining site to the processing site, a distance of approximately half a kilometer.

2/3 Notes from the field

Portrait of a miner’s wife. She moved to Prestea to look for a better life and married a local miner.

3/3 Notes from the field

Miners pose for their portrait right after finishing their underground shift.