Ghana’s artisanal fishing communities have called for the immediate revocation of offshore gold exploration licences granted to Gold Coast GRC Ghana Ltd, insisting that the government’s suspension of the company’s operations is insufficient to protect the country’s fisheries, marine ecosystems and food security.
The demand was made at a press conference in Accra yesterday and signed by Nana Kwame Sankah on behalf of the fishing communities.
The association called on President John Dramani Mahama to go beyond suspending the company’s operations and permanently halt the proposed offshore gold exploration and exploitation in Ghana’s coastal waters.
The fishers, comprising chief fishermen, canoe owners, fishing crews, fish processors and traders, expressed concern over 10 reported reconnaissance licences covering approximately 10,000 square kilometres of marine waters. They said the scale of the licensed areas warranted urgent government intervention.
They warned that allowing the project to proceed could threaten fish stocks, damage sensitive marine habitats and jeopardise the livelihoods of coastal communities, with wider implications for fish supplies, market prices and the national economy.
Although they welcomed President Mahama’s decision to suspend the company’s activities, the association maintained that the measure offered no lasting guarantee against a resumption of operations. It insisted that revoking the licences was the only acceptable outcome.
“Our ocean is not a liquid desert,” the statement declared, warning that offshore mining activities could transform productive fishing grounds into depleted waters incapable of sustaining families and communities that had depended on the sea for generations.
The association stressed that the potential consequences extended beyond fishermen to women engaged in fish processing and trading, whose businesses depended on reliable catches, as well as consumers who relied on fish as an affordable source of protein and nutrition.
It also questioned the effectiveness of extending the Inshore Exclusion Zone (IEZ) from six to 12 nautical miles under the Fisheries and Aquaculture Act, 2025 (Act 1146), if activities capable of undermining artisanal fisheries were permitted in the same waters.
The fishers called for effective protection of the expanded zone, warning that the legal gains secured through years of advocacy must not be undermined by offshore mineral exploration or eventual extraction.
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