ARTICLE IN PRESS

Resources Policy 35 (2010) 4753

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Resources Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol

Inuence of land tenure practices on artisanal mining activity in Ghana

Frank K. Nyame a,n, Joseph Blocher b
a
b

Department of Geology, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana

Duke Law School, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

a r t i c l e in fo

abstract

Article history:
Received 4 August 2009
Received in revised form
16 October 2009
Accepted 1 November 2009

This paper examines the issue of land tenure and how it inuences artisanal and small-scale mining
(ASM) activity in Ghana. Over the past few decades, attempts by governments in sub-Saharan Africa to
regulate or formalize ASM as a result of the sectors increasing socio-economic and environmental
importance have largely been unsuccessful. Even though mining laws have tended to vest all minerals
in the state, increasing evidence suggests that mineral-rich lands for artisanal mining continue to be
frequently traded between local landowners and miners or interested groups outside the ofcial legal
regime. This development, i.e. land trading for artisanal mining, contributes signicantly towards
proliferation of illegal ASM activity and hence potentially challenges attempts by governments and
development partners to formalise the sector.
& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Artisanal mining
Land tenure
Ghana

Introduction
In response to the increasing socio-economic signicance of
artisanal and small-scale mining in sub-Saharan Africa over the
past few decades, many governments in the sub-region, with
assistance from development partners and multi-lateral agencies,
have attempted to formalize and regulate the artisanal mining
sector to help maximize benets and mitigate adverse socioeconomic and environmental impacts. Even though such attempts
have gone a long way towards mainstreaming ASM activity, the
sector largely operates outside the ofcial regulatory regime.
Preponderance of illegal1 ASM activity has been attributed to
factors such as unfavourable government policies, the cumbersome and bureaucratic nature of registration procedures, largescale mining (LSM) encumbering large tracts of land at the
expense of ASM, poverty, unemployment, and structural adjustment programmes undertaken by governments in the sub-region
(e.g. Hilson and Potter, 2003, 2005; Banchirigah, 2006). One factor
that appears to have received little attention in research and
policy discourses on the increasingly signicant role of ASM
activity is the issue of land tenure practices in traditional subSaharan African societies. Based on work in several ASM
communities, this paper argues that customary land tenure
practices play a very signicant role in the proliferation and

Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: fnyame@ug.edu.gh (F.K. Nyame), blocher@law.duke.edu
(J. Blocher).
1
In this paper we use the term illegal to refer to activity that is not in
keeping with formal statutory law. Locally, this is referred to as galamsey. As we
discuss below, much ASM is in fact legal under customary arrangements.
0301-4207/$ - see front matter & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.resourpol.2009.11.001

perpetuation of artisanal mining activity in Ghana.2 The interface

between the two, still largely unexplored, merits attention and
detailed study. Our preliminary ndings suggest that there are
two divisions at work: that between ASM and other mining
activity; and that between customary and formalized land tenure.
The two divisions closely track each other. So long as this is true,
artisanal mining is likely to remain largely illegalin the sense
of being outside the formal system.

Mining laws in sub-Saharan Africa

Many recent laws to regulate the mining sector in sub-Saharan
Africa have their genesis in a political atmosphere that was highly
2
Generalizations about customary land tenure and ownership of land in
Ghana are notoriously difcult and imprecise, both because the boundaries
between the customary and statutory land sectors are not always clear and
because customary law itself recognizes a multiplicity of overlapping interests.
The allodial title is the highest interest in land known in customary law, above
which there can theoretically be no other interest (Woodman, 1996). This title is
held by a customary leader such as a chief. This leader, however, is said to hold the
land only in trust for the community, administering it for the benet of their
subjectsthose living, dead, and not yet born. And in Akan areas, at least, an
individual or family that establishes rightful possession of a piece of land can
thereby gain a usufructury interest, which even the chief cannot displace. This
multiplicity of overlapping interests has obvious implications for determining who
is entitled to compensation (or to share in compensation) from mining activity.
But dening these interests with any level of precisions is far beyond the scope of
this paper, whose purpose is simply to draw attention to the intersection of the
customary and statutory sectors and highlight the importance of land tenure
arrangements in artisanal mining activities. Implementation of the recommendations in Part 4 of the paper would of course require careful attention to variations
in customary land tenure in different communities.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
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F.K. Nyame, J. Blocher / Resources Policy 35 (2010) 4753

skewed towards increased state participation in the mineral

resources sector. State participation in commercial enterprises
including miningwas the norm in post-colonial Africa, both in
nations with civilian leadership (Lanning and Mueller, 1979) and
those where laws were promulgated through decree by military
regimes. Thus apart from the governments whose primary
objective was simply appropriation of minerals and/or lands,
there appeared to be very little or no inputs from major
stakeholders, including landowners. There were virtually no
consultations or involvement whatsoever of other interested
parties and landowners; nor did such decisions take into
consideration traditional land tenure practices. Successive democratically elected governments have not yet made realistic
amendments to reect, as well as accommodate, individual or
family customary land ownership. The result is the perpetuation
of parallel systemsthe formal state system, descended from the
original post-colonial land appropriations; and the customary
land tenure system, which for many miners and landowners
remains the most accessible and familiar mechanism of land
tenure.
Probably because only certain regions were endowed with
mineral resources, the French colonial administration did not nd
it expedient to enact far reaching laws to regulate mining activity
across francophone West Africa. Luning (2006) describes the
system in Burkina Faso:
The colonial administration demarcated zones reserved for
indigenous artisanal miningyBut between 1960 and 1991, no
further legislative amendments were made relating to the
mining industry. The only relevant decree passed
concerned land tenure reorganization. This law (zatu no. AN
VIII-0039 bis/FP/PRES) stipulates that the land and what lies
beneath are the property of state; there are specic laws,
however, in place to regulate sites and quarries, depending on
the nature and location of activities (Gueye, 2001,
p. 12).
It appeared these laws were only given strong recognition
during the regime of Thomas Sankara, when legislative changes
were made towards combating feudalism as well as foreign
domination of the mining sector. In fact, according to Luning 2006
(quoting Lavigne-Delville, 1998), the law specically stipulated
that all lands belong to the state, even though there was an
implicit tolerance towards existing land rights. In sharp contrast
to the previous state monopolization of the sector, the
subsequent regime of Blaise Campaore sought to liberalise both
mining and marketing of minerals. The introduction of the Mining
Code of 1997 ushered in attempts towards privatization of the
sector with a new system of mining titles that accommodated
private players with different capacity and equipment (Luning,
2006).
Ghana, too, has long been recognized for its rich mining
possibilitieshence its colonial name, the Gold Coast. Before and
during the colonial era, individual landowners could generally
claim at least a portion of the minerals that occurred on or within
their lands. The extent of the landowners rights in these minerals
varied according to the relevant customary rules. For example, in
many Akan areas, chiefs (the paramount stool and the chief of
town) were entitled to specied proportions of any gold won,
whoever produced it and regardless of who else had an interest in
the land. (Dumett, 1998). Because the country consisted of many
diverse tribal and ethnic groups, there was no uniformity in
customary laws relating to minerals extraction across the
country. Evidence gathered during the study suggests that
prospective mine developers may have entered into negotiated
agreements with various traditional authorities in the acquisition

of mining leases.3 In part because no landmarks were in place to

clearly distinguish land boundaries, access to mining leases
triggered waves of litigation between competing traditional
landlords, some of which were adjudicated in the supreme courts
of the colonial government. Efforts to impose order through
statute met with limited success. For example, the Concessions
Ordinance, which was enacted in the Gold Coast Colony in 1903,
provided a procedure for validating grants of mineral rights. (A
similar law was passed in Ashanti in 1903.) But the Ordinances
effectiveness was partial at best, as some chiefs repeatedly
granted options to the same piece of land, leading to a situation
where boundary disputes arose with alarming frequency
(Howard, 1978, p. 48).
Soon after Ghana gained independence in 1957, the Minerals
Act of 1962 vested all forms of mineral deposits in or on Ghanaian
lands in the state, a situation which has been repeated in Ghanas
constitution since 1969 and in statutes such as the Minerals and
Mining Law (PNDCL 153 (2)) of 1986 and subsequent amendments in 1993 (Minerals and Mining Amendment Act 475) and
2006. This means that regardless of ownership of the land on
which mineral deposits occur, the right to own, trade or exploit
any specied mineral in legally and internationally accepted
boundaries or connes of the country resides in the government,
which has the sole responsibility for granting mineral rights to
prospective or interested persons for minerals development. As
indicated earlier, many of these laws were promulgated in a
political atmosphere that was highly skewed in favour of
increased state participation inor what could be described as
annexation ofthe mineral resources sector. In addition,
traditional authorities and local mining communities have not
been educated about the law, particularly the division it creates
between land ownership and mining rights. This dichotomy
land rights versus mineral rightspresents signicant challenges
to the administration of mining activities.
Land ownership and (land) use4 in artisanal mining areas
Land ownership
Opinions vary in the forms or categories and approximate
distribution of land ownership in Ghana. According to Larbi et al.
(2004), there are principally three major types of land ownership,
namely state land, vested land and customary land with the latter
forming about 70% of the land in Ghana. Aubynn (2006) gives two
categories of land ownership, i.e. lands that belong to the state
(state lands) and lands that belong to stools or skins (stool lands)
in approximately 2080% proportions, respectively. Still others
give four forms of land ownership involving Government Land,
Customary/Stool Land, Family/Private Land, and other Lesser
Interests.5
Asumadu (2003) explains that under Ghanas land tenure
systems:
Under the existing arrangement, traditional land-owning
authorities (stool chiefs, clan heads and skins) hold allodial
(absolute ownership) title to land on behalf of their people.
Thus outright ownership of land is still a rare form of land
tenure in Ghana. Leases and rentals over a satisfactory period
3
Historical documents obtained during the study suggest greater inuence or
involvement of traditional authorities on mineral applications and licensing
procedures.
4
For a brief overview of land ownership in Ghana, see Larbi et al. (2004).
5
The Law Reform Commission of Ghana identied these four specic
categories of interests in land in Ghana, which were subsequently ofcially
recognized in the Land Title Registration of 1986 (Sarpong, 1999).

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of time for economic/commercial activities are possible and

involve permission by the allodial titleholders to use the land.
However, the land must revert to the community or the
allodial titleholder at the end of the lease or cessation of the
activity for which the lease was granted in the rst place.
There is no doubt whatsoever that, spatially, gold-bearing
rocks which form the most predominant resource for artisanal
miners in Ghana fall predominantly within lands under customary or communal ownership.

49

witnesses and the (migrant) farmers. We took out about one

pole8 of the marshy area and added a small portion of
adjacent land which is pampa.9 As custom demands, the
galamsey people presented (local) drinks and initial money
and begged us to allow them to work. I gave one of my
nephews to go with them every day and I also went there once
a week to check how the work was going. After they worked
for six months, they paid us well. They paid us what they
promised to pay for the one pole of land. If I give out the same
one pole to people for pepper or garden egg farming, I will not
get the same money.

Land use
Traditional subsistence agriculture of food and cash crops
dominate land use activity on mineral-endowed lands. Landowners often lease out portions of land for tenure to migrant or
interested farmers on various terms of tenure ranging from
months to years (Quisumbing et al., 2001a; Otsuka et al., 1999). It
appears that these practices have become less popular in many
mineral-rich areas, however, as the agricultural value of land (and
thus the value of abunu and abusa share cropping)6 is lessened by
stresses from climatic change, limited or unavailable markets for
farm produce, unpredictable income and generally long maturity
for agricultural products such as cocoa. Landowners in mineralrich areas, therefore, may turn to ASM as an attractive and
economically benecial promise of income. As one landowner at
Dominase in western Ghana remarked:
If I can give my land to migrant farmers or even (local) people
who want land for abunu or abusa to plant cocoa or oil palm
and they can stay on the land for as long as the trees can be
harvested, why cant I do the same for someone to do
galamsey7 for four months? It is true they spoil the land but
most of the land they use is marsh (land) used for rice farming
but these days, you cant even do rice farming because birds
will eat everything or if there is no rain, everything will spoil.
Then consider the work involved for rice farmweeding,
felling trees, burning, fencing, cutting and carrying bamboo.
How many people do rice farming now? Our elders say that if
there is a stick lying nearby, you do not allow a dog to bite you.
Everyone needs money and they (galamsey) also need land to
make their money.
These suggest that people consider the short term but
seemingly more certain economic benets of getting something
from the galamsey activity far more important than the long term
but apparently risky prospects of farming the traditionally owned
land.
Another local community member stated it this way:
At present, I have three migrants on our (family) lands in the
Adabamu area. They all do share cropping. As for food crops,
everything is for them but the cocoa when it matures they
harvest for the rst three years. Then after that, we go and
divide into three, they take two and I take one. Recently some
galamsey people came to work on part of the land
that is not under cultivation. That one, they came to talk
about it (with me). I called some family members, some (local)
6
Abunu and abusa are the two major types of share-cropping contract in
Ghana. Under abunu, the landowner and laborer split returns in half. Under abusa,
they split returns into thirds, with the laborer often getting two thirds and the
landowner getting one (This may be more common where the laborer had to clear
and prepare land before farming it, for example.) (Blocher, 2006).
7
Galamsey are small-scale artisanal mainly gold and diamond miners. It has
been estimated that nearly 300,000 Ghanaians make a living from small-scale
mining activity, though over twice as many people may actually be involved in this
activity.

Information gathered suggests that not all such arrangements,

however, ended well for landowners, some of whom ultimately
lose out as the galamsey people easily abscond when they cannot
fulll nancial commitments made prior to work. Those same
traits that may make galamsey activity as attractive as compared
to small-scale farmingthe potentially fast returns and the fact
that no long-term investment is neededalso make it easy for
galamsey to walk away from deals.
It is therefore not surprising that parties interviewed during
eld investigations repeatedly referred to the nature of tenure
arrangements or agreements, the parties involved and the
distribution of compensation for land leased out to miners. Many
agreements, apart from being verbal, were done very quickly,
often with few family members in attendance. There also
appeared to be intense friction among family members especially
between family heads and other members. There were situations
where, for example, family heads had apparently either been
removed or their actions prompted litigation between and
amongst family members not only because they acted unilaterally
to lease out family lands for ASM without consulting other
members, but also allegedly pocketed the proceeds or compensation packages involved. In a few communities, however, some of
the local youth were also involved in bringing the galamsey to the
villages, in these cases facilitating the entire process including
access to family lands. This community-based investment process
can be contrasted with reports of LSM investments, which,
according to some local people, were much less transparent.
Many landowners complained they are neither involved in the
process nor get any monetary compensation when their customary lands are leased out by the government to large-scale mining
companies. Some landowners even contend that compensation
and resettlement packages made by large-scale mining companies are often given to tenant farmers who temporarily occupy
and utilize lands to the total exclusion of the direct landlord.
These are but few of the potential conicts of interest that result
from access to mineralized lands in relation to the customary land
tenure practices.

Discussion
Land tenure practices, mineral titles and ASM activity
The issue of land tenure (especially customary land tenure
practices) and how it inuences artisanal mining activity in Ghana
is not only complex and challenging but also one that has received
little attention in terms of policy or research. Because many ASM
operators do not own or legally acquire lands on which they
operate, the question arises as to how and why miners get prolic
8
The pole is a traditional measure of land area in many Akan-speaking areas.
It is approximately equivalent to 40 times the full arms stretch of an adult male,
which translates to land of dimension about 80 m  80 m.
9
Pampa translates to approximately a plateaufairly at lying land on a hill.

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access to mining lands. This could partly be attributed to the

prevailing system of land ownership in many traditional societies
in Ghana. Because state lands form a volumetrically small portion
of total available lands in the country (see Larbi et al., 2004),
mineral-rich areas predominantly fall within lands still customarily administered by various stools, skins or families. Regardless,
therefore, of the fact that mineral resources are by law the
property of the state, stool lands in mineral-endowed areas
continue to be held, utilized in most cases and frequently traded
(see Blocher, 2006), except for the purposes of access for largescale mining (LSM) or registered or legal small-scale miners,10
according to existing customary laws.
Field studies in many mining regions in Ghana amply suggest
that two parallel systems of mineral licensing, one formal and
the other informal, operate in the country. Formal licensing
involves the grant of permission by mine regulatory bodies, acting
on behalf of the government, to legally prospective mining
companies, groups or individuals against theoretically demarcated land of xed or determinable dimensions. Access to land for
mineral interests under this mode of acquisition is determined by
law, as are royalties that accrue, which are collected on behalf of
the allodial landowners by the Lands Commission or Ofce of the
Administrator of Stool Lands and ultimately paid to chiefs or
traditional rulers. Under the informal mode of licensing, however,
allocation and access to plots of land such as required for artisanal
mining activity are permissible usually through direct negotiations done according to traditional customary practices. Any
royalties in this case are simply paid through negotiable and
mainly verbal agreements between miners and individual landowners or members of the land-owning family. Because this
licensing process is very quick, non-bureaucratic and usually done
to the satisfaction both socially and economically of the parties
involved, it is highly popular with both illegal artisanal miners
and local community members. The relative simplicity and
informality of the customary system may be particularly
attractive to miners who lack the inclination or ability to deal
with the state bureaucracy. Our studies suggest that the formal
mode of mineral licensing is mainly patronized by LSM companies
and proportionately few ASM operators.
Schematically, land tenure practices in the artisanal mining
sector could presumably be inuenced by the prevailing interests
of, or relationships among, major stakeholders, i.e. government,
artisanal miners, local communities and large-scale mining
companies (Fig. 1). Depending on their interests, stakeholders
will tend to gravitate towards better options to protect their
respective stakes. Because LSM companies operate in the formal
segment of the economywhich assists the government greatly
in terms of its overall development objectives via ow of
investment, formal employment, taxation, skills and technology
transfer, among otherscordial relationships tend to exist
between the government and large-scale mining companies.
Understandably, mutual benets accrue to the government and
LSM due to the economic and/or political benets derived by the
two parties.
Conict amongst community or family members over land
ownership is a major problem in many traditional societies in
Ghana where land is the major form of asset for livelihoods of
many rural, predominantly poor people (Quisumbing et al.,
2001a). Onset of ASM activity in a given area was, therefore,
expected to exacerbate the problem. Evidence obtained from
areas of intense illegal ASM activity suggest, however, that cordial
and in some cases symbiotic relationships exist between artisanal

10

These generally represent a fraction of the artisanal mining community in

Ghana.

Fig. 1. Relationships between major stakeholders in the mining and land tenure
nexus, Ghana. Harmonious relationships (double arrow) mainly apparently exist
between government and large-scale mining companies as well as between
artisanal miners and local communities. All others (dashed lines), e.g. communities and government or LSMASM tend to be antagonistic.

miners and local communities, presumably due to the shared

socio-economic benets derived from the partnership between
the two parties. As indicated above, various land tenure arrangements exist between ASM operators and local communities
outside the formal or statutory regime of mineral licencing or
mining rights.
Apart from these two (i.e. governmentLSM and ASMlocal
communities), all other relationships between stakeholders
governmentASM, governmentcommunities, ASMLSM and
communitiesLSMcan be fairly described as acrimonious and
antagonistic. (Fig. 1) This conict stems mainly from the
competing interests of the various stakeholders with respect to
land use or resources, in part a reection of observations made by
many previous scholars (e.g. Hilson, 2002; Hilson and Yakovleva,
2007 and references therein). Each of these stakeholders would,
therefore, tend to gravitate towards the most appropriate and
favourable partnership with regard to their respective socioeconomic or political interest in the resource frontier region in
question. LSM seems best suited to achieving the central
governments macro-objectives and policies; ASM, on the other
hand, is better suited to the small-scale goals of local communities.
The choice of land tenure, in turn, largely ows from this
selection: LSMgovernment partnerships are governed by statutory law, which both parties prefer because of its formality and
predictability; ASMlocal community arrangements are governed
by customary law (which both parties prefer because of its
informality and exibility). This of course does not mean that
LSMgovernment partnerships ignore customary law. Indeed,
statutory law, while vesting minerals in the state, recognizes the
ownership of land at custom. Hence, land rents and a portion of
mining royalties go to those recognized by customary law as
having interests in land. Nor does it mean that ASMlocal
community arrangements are always entirely divorced from the
statutory system. For example, Ghana, like many other subSaharan African countries, permits formal registration of customary land transactions. Accordingly, the lines between the
statutory and customary tenure systems can be blurred. As a
general matter, however, the choice of tenure thus tracks the
choice of partner.

Policy implications
With many mining communities straining under enormous
social and economic pressure, customary landowners feel systematically squeezed out of their means of livelihood. This has been

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further exacerbated by the fact that mining laws appear to be not

well grounded in ASM communities. The resultant effect is that
local people including landowners are either (or pretend to be)
unaware of the law or consider them as transgressive and
usurpatory. According to Luning (2006), some lands in francophone West Africa where both colonial and post-independence
legislation had entrusted land and mineral resources appropriation only to the state, still continue to be under traditional
ownership. With the increasing importance of the informal
economy that ASM activity represents, these can no longer be
ignored. Land trading and proliferation of illegal ASM activity,
therefore, probably partly exemplify the response of various landowning mining communities to a state-imposed legal framework
from whose formulation and implementation they (i.e. communities and customary landowners) have almost totally been
excluded. The strategy of the landowners, it would seem,
primarily is to obviate the policy of vesting all minerals in the
state without necessarily addressing potential conicts relating to
user rights especially on stool lands. This is in keeping
with similar ndings regarding agricultural land titling programmes, where small-scale farmers holding land under customary arrangements have often ignored the formal registration
framework (Blocher, 2006; Kasanga, 1996; Kasanga and Kotey,
2001).
To buttress their point, local communities in mining areas
frequently cite instances of land access granted by the government to LSM companies on their ancestral lands without their
knowledge, involvement or participation while, at the same time,
no feasible alternatives or options are made available to them.
They have therefore voiced strong displeasure at the legal mode of
acquisition of mining rights especially relating to access to
traditional lands. One landowner, who claimed to be selfemployed in Accra, intimated thus:
In Accra, some land owners get their income mainly from sand
winning. Go to Amasaman and see how land owners make
several millions of cedis every day from sand contractors.
Every morning, they (land owners) or their representatives are
at the sand winning sites and for every trip of sand (smooth,
medium or rough) that a tipper truck takes, the land owner
makes between nine hundred thousand and one million four
hundred thousand cedis.11 That even depends on the (capacity
of) truck. Some land owners have even bought loaders which
load the trucks every day. Over there nobody talks about it but
they even have more money than people here. If they can sell
the sand on the land and make so much money, why cant we
also give the land to galamsey? In Accra, they use for buildings
but here they take the gold from the gravel. Why is the
government not going there to stop them from taking the
sand? The government is not doing anything for us here. There
are no jobs and the price of everything is very high. You see, we
rural people are always losers.
Observations such as these probably explain the reliance on
customary land tenure practices and resulting rise in artisanal
mining, to the detriment of legal tenure in the ASM sector. Not
surprisingly, Larbi (2008) has documented resentment by customary landowners to the states compulsory acquisition of land.
In addition, the above-cited comment probably exemplies the
response of local communities and landowners to the stateimposed framework for mining rights from whose formulation
11
At the time, one US dollar (1US$) was ofcially equivalent to about 9300
cedis, the local currency. At present, 1US$  1.5 Ghana cedis after re-denomination
of the local currency by the NPP-led Government in 2007.

51

and implementation they (i.e. communities and customary landowners) have, rightly or wrongly, been almost totally excluded.
The shift in tenure practices from farming to artisanal mining,
and the aggregate impacts over time, could not only be immense
in economic terms but will also likely have important consequences on human and food security as well as environmental
destruction. Increasing opposition by communities presents
serious human security problems for government. Fatal confrontations between security agencies and communities are all too
familiar (see Hilson and Yakovleva, 2007). During a recent conict
in the Nkroful area of western Ghana, rampaging youths
destroyed property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars
belonging to Adamus Mining Company Ltd. The government
responded by sending in security forces to round up
people, a situation that sent several others into hiding for months.
Again, because arable lands originally used or leased
out for farming are now increasingly being used for ASM activity
without reclamation, the comparatively small but cumulatively
large plots of land become desolate in a short period of
time.
To partly reduce conict relating to land use in the mining
sector, the government, LSM companies and NGOs have initiated
various alternative livelihood programmes for people in mining
communities. The government has, in particular, also attempted a
policy of re-locating artisanal miners to designated and demarcated plots of land solely for ASM operations with the primary
aim of better control, monitoring, legalization and registration of
illegal miners. Field evidence so far, however, suggests that these
initiatives may not succeed due to stiff resistance by miners and
other interested groups. Communities, local landowners and
artisanal miners, being rmly on the ground, are more likely to
perpetuate customary (i.e., illegal) mining activity to the detriment of formalization.
Such policies and programmes may partly succeed if land
tenure reforms, as suggested in a number of scholarly and policyoriented research (Asumadu, 2003; Blocher, 2006; Larbi, 2008;
Larbi et al., 2004), are seriously considered. In addition, any such
land tenure reforms should critically examine existing statutory
and customary tenure arrangements, especially as they relate to
land and mineral rights. Harmonization of policy to properly
reect, incorporate and/or accommodate traditional land tenure
norms and practices in the mineral sector in generaland ASM in
particularcould offer better promise in the circumstances.
Scholars have long argued that effective land-based economic
growth in the agricultural and businesses sectors depends on the
successful integration of statutory and customary land law (De
Soto, 2000; Ensminger, 1997). It appears that the same holds true
for mining.
It is notoriously difcult to generalize about which customary
and small-scale practices should be adopted, and a detailed policy
prescription is beyond the scope of this paper. A few suggestions,
however, may be in order. First, the persistence of land disputes
between large- and small-scale miners suggests the importance of
systematically dening and recognizing customary claims so that
the ASM and LSM sectors can better coexist, if not eventually
integrate. This, in turn, could be made easier if the procedure for
obtaining an individual license for small-scale mining were
streamlined and made more attractive to galamsey, who are used
to working outside the connes of the statutory system.
Currently, they have little incentive to abandon the customary
system and engage in a licensing procedure which is tedious,
requiring the completion of several forms, and nal approval from
governmental authorities (Hilson, 2001, p. 21). None of this
should obscure the fact that the Ghanaian government has
already made great efforts to support small-scale mining operations, for example through the Precious Minerals Marketing

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F.K. Nyame, J. Blocher / Resources Policy 35 (2010) 4753

Company, which buys gold and diamonds from small-scale

miners at competitive prices, and the Small-Scale Mining Project,
which provides institutional support through a variety of
agencies. It is hoped that the government can match this technical
and practical support for traditional mining practices with a
similar support for traditional tenure systems.
At the same time, not all small-scale practices are necessarily
worthy of emulation. Small-scale mining has contributed to
mercury pollution and land degradation in many areas of Ghana
(Hilson, 2001, among others). One other issue that also merits
study is the role of gender in mining tenure arrangements. Our
study, though preliminary, suggests that most of these transactions are undertaken by men with little or no input from, or
consultation with, women. It is not yet known whether women
benet from the proceeds, but indications are that they may be
relegated to the background both in terms of negotiations or
agreements and monetary benets that accrue. It has been
estimated that women constitute only 15% of the legalized
segment of the small-scale mining workforce, but almost 50% of
that in the illegal galamsey industry (Hilson, 2001). Considering
that many mining landsespecially those with actively producing artisanal mines and/or potential mineral occurrences in the
southern part of the countryare within areas where traditional
matrilineal inheritance systems are practiced (Quisumbing et al.,
2001a, 2001b), it would be of interest to examine the interplay
between mining tenure arrangements and gender differences.
Finally, it must be emphasized that customary tenure practices
are constantly changing, in a variety of ways and in response to
many different economic, political and cultural forces (Otsuka
et al., 1999). Decades ago, scholars described how land tenure in
Ghana changed in response to the growth of commercial agriculture
(Hill, 1963). Contemporary scholars have emphasized how tenure
practices in Ghana and elsewhere continue to evolve in response to
social and political movements, including demographic change,
urbanisation, commercialisation and land transactions, and the
breakdown of customary institutions in many areas (Cotula, 2007).
Land tenure practices relating to ASM will surely be no different. The
impetus for this paper is to illustrate the relationship between land
tenure practices and ASM, and suggest a few ways in which these
inevitable changes can best be made.

Conclusion
This study argues that customary landowners exercising
tenurial prerogatives for mining rights not only fuel increased
ASM activity but, by doing so, challenge attempts by government
to formalize the sector. Because ASM represents a thriving sector
with immense socio-economic, political and environmental
implications, the present land and mineral tenure arrangements
where mineral-endowed lands are predominantly owned and
traded under customary law creates a recipe for conict between
the statutory framework and age-old customary land use
practices. This may have profound implications on security of
tenure and ultimately serve as disincentive for investment in the
mining sector in general. Finally, it is suggested that economic,
political, socio-cultural and environmental benets from mineralrich lands can be mutually derived if the statutory component of
land tenure actively engages traditional landowners in mineralrich areas of the country in a sustainable framework.

Acknowledgements
Many people helped to make the study possible; these include
chiefs and people in many mining communities in Ghana, some of

which are cited in the paper. Artisanal miners in the places visited
offered many useful insights into the subject and also provided
candid opinions and information on the issue of access to mining
lands. Several key ideas relating to land tenure and mining in
Ghana took shape whilst FKN was on a fellowship at the Brass
Research Centre, Cardiff University, UK during which time
voluminous literature on the subject was acquired. We also wish
to acknowledge the kind permission and assistance by the
University of Ghana and the Department of Geology, Legon,
Accra. Dr. Thomas K. Armah of the Geology Department offered
tremendous help in various ways. Finally, our sincere thanks go to
the editor and two anonymous reviewers whose very incisive
comments helped improve the manuscript considerably.

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