In the heart of Ghana’s Eastern Region, the hum of excavators and the whir of motorbikes cut through what was once a tranquil forest. Young men and women, boots caked in mud, shuttle between the main road and gold pits deep in the woods. Their pursuit? Gold—gleaming, lucrative, and, for many, a lifeline. But beneath the economic promise, a darker reality is unfolding, one echoed thousands of miles away in the Brazilian Amazon, where indigenous communities face a different but equally insidious threat from the same precious metal.
Ghana’s gold rush is not new, but the stakes have never been higher. According to Ghana Business News, over one million small-scale miners, known locally as galamsey, now work illegal mines that account for 35% of the country’s gold production. With global prices soaring from $1,800 an ounce in 2020 to over $4,000 in 2025, gold exports are a windfall for the nation’s coffers. Yet, this wealth comes at a staggering cost to the environment and public health.
Illegal mining has polluted at least 60% of Ghana’s rivers, destroying vital ecosystems and, crucially, eradicating medicinal plants that 70% of Ghanaians rely on for healthcare. In a country where private healthcare costs are often out of reach—51.7% of Ghanaians seek private care, according to a 2019 Ghana Statistical Service survey—traditional medicine is not a luxury but a necessity. "When you destroy a forest, you destroy a pharmacy," says Awula Serwah, a lawyer and coordinator of the Eco-conscious Citizens group, speaking to openDemocracy. "What people don’t seem to realise is that as a consequence of illegal mining, the peasant farmers are losing their livelihood. The fishermen are losing their livelihood."
For traditional healers like Farida Mohammed, the impact is deeply personal. Once, the kwaebesin plant—a cornerstone of her bone fracture treatments—grew abundantly behind her home. Now, it’s vanished. "Just behind my home, we could find the medicinal plants we needed," Mohammed laments. "But because of illegal mining, they are gone. The areas we were used to finding the plants were cleared." Her story is not unique. Ghana’s forests, which cover 35% of its land, are disappearing at an alarming rate: 135,000 hectares lost annually, equivalent to 189,000 football pitches, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
This deforestation threatens at least 1,360 species of medicinal plants used to treat ailments ranging from malaria and wounds to hypertension and asthma. Dr. Gladys Schwinger, a botany professor at the University of Ghana, warns, "We don’t know half of what we have in our forests, and now we may never know because they have been destroyed by galamsey." The loss is not just ecological; it’s existential. As forests vanish, so too does the accumulated wisdom of rural communities who have long depended on these plants for survival.
Ghana’s government, under President John Mahama—who returned to power in January 2025—has faced mounting pressure to act. Mahama campaigned on a promise to scrap laws permitting mining in forest reserves, yet it took nearly eleven months and intense activism before his administration began to revoke them. Even then, environmentalists like Serwah remain skeptical. "It was a good PR exercise. But did it answer our questions? Not really," she says of a recent government forum on illegal mining. Activists are now demanding a state of emergency in affected areas, citing the scale of devastation.
Efforts to conserve what remains are hampered by limited resources. The Ghana Centre for Plant Medicine Research is developing arboretums and medicinal gardens, but as Michael Akuamoah-Boateng, the centre’s head of plant development, explains, "What we are now trying to push for is that the Forestry Commission give us concessions. They can give us a portion, and we can cultivate the medicinal plants, which we can use as a form of conservation, and we can also harvest sustainably." Yet, the Environmental Protection Authority, granted expanded powers in January 2025, admits medicinal plant losses have not been a specific focus. "This is one area we have not really paid attention to," principal programme officer Hobson Agyapong told openDemocracy.
Scarcity is driving up costs for healers and patients alike. Mohammed now sources kwaebesin from over 600 kilometers away, paying GHS2,000 ($182) per sack—a cost she reluctantly passes on to her clients. "[The illegal mining] really hurt us. We’re poor in this community. It may get to a time where if you break your leg, you will have to go to hospital and pay up," she says. The Centre for Plant Medicine Research faces similar challenges, with prices for key plants rising as supplies dwindle. Some, like ageratum conyzoides and desmodium adscendens, are now nearly impossible to find.
Perhaps most troubling is the silent threat of contamination. Heavy metals—mercury, cyanide, arsenic—used in gold extraction seep into the soil and water, accumulating in medicinal plants. A study in the Journal of Chemistry found dangerous levels of these toxins in 20 medicinal plants from Obuasi, a southern Ghanaian mining town. "If the people are getting the herbs from a galamsey site where there is a lot of mercury in the soil, the market people will not know and just sell it on," Akuamoah-Boateng warns. The health risks are profound: neurological disorders, cardiovascular issues, even birth defects. Yet, with little scrutiny on raw plant sales, the danger remains largely invisible.
Ghana’s crisis is mirrored in Brazil, where the indigenous Munduruku people of the Amazon are fighting their own battle against mercury poisoning. As reported by Sky News, the Tapajos River, their lifeblood, is laced with mercury from illegal gold mining. The symptoms—miscarriages, infertility, muscle tremors, memory loss, fading hearing and vision—haunt the community. "Many women end up losing their children," says Alessandra Korap, a Munduruku leader. "Either they can’t get pregnant, or they lose their [foetus] over time. So, women are afraid of getting pregnant."
Mercury enters the food chain through river fish, a staple for the Munduruku. "We have robust evidence that mercury emissions to the environment comes from illegal gold mining activity," confirms Professor Gabriela Arrifano of the Federal University of Para. The problem is compounded by organized crime, with gold mining and drug trafficking sharing networks and infrastructure. Despite a government crackdown under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which saw a 94% reduction in illegal mining in some territories, the ever-rising price of gold continues to lure miners into protected lands.
"When the price increases, everyone wants to invade our land, to pollute the water, to destroy the forest, because they need to take the gold to sell to other countries," Korap says. The buyers, she adds, remain oblivious to the suffering left behind: "They don’t know what is happening to our bodies, to our lives."
Across continents, the gold rush is enriching a few while impoverishing the many—often in ways that can’t be measured in dollars or ounces. The forests and rivers that sustain life are being sacrificed for short-term gain, leaving communities to pay the ultimate price. The stories from Ghana and Brazil are a stark reminder: the true cost of gold is written not just in ledgers, but in lost lives, vanishing knowledge, and poisoned lands.
