Nautilus Minerals equipment for deep seabed mining
Deep sea mining, also known as seabed mining, is the process of extracting valuable minerals and metals from the ocean floor. This practice has gained attention as a potential solution to meet the growing demand for resources such as rare earth elements, copper, nickel and cobalt. However, deep-sea mining poses significant threats to the ocean and its ecosystems, and it is essential that African governments represented by the African group at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) reject this practice and instead pursue sustainable alternatives.
One major concern with deep sea mining is the potential for damage to the ocean’s delicate ecosystems. These ecosystems, which are located in the abyssal plain, are home to a diverse array of unique and fragile species. The mining process, which involves the use of heavy machinery and explosives, can disrupt and destroy these habitats, leading to a decline in biodiversity. Research has shown that deep-sea mining can cause significant physical damage to the seabed, and can also lead to long-term changes in the composition of benthic communities, potentially leading to the extinction of species.
Another concern is the potential for pollution. The mining process can release large amounts of sediment and other pollutants into the water, which can have a detrimental effect on marine life and the overall health of the ocean. Additionally, the mining process can also release toxic substances, such as heavy metals, which can accumulate in the food chain and harm marine life. Studies have also shown that mining activities can release pollutants into the surrounding waters that can persist for years, and can affect the entire oceanic food web.
Deep sea mining also poses a significant risk to indigenous communities and local economies that depend on the ocean for their livelihoods. These communities, which are often located in coastal areas, rely on fishing, tourism, and other ocean-based activities for their survival. The disruption and destruction of the ocean’s ecosystems can have a devastating impact on these communities, leading to economic and social upheaval.
Given these concerns, it is crucial that African governments reject deep-sea mining and instead pursue sustainable alternatives. One such alternative is the use of recycled materials, which can reduce the demand for new resources and decrease the need for mining.
Another alternative is the development of clean energy technologies, which can reduce the demand for minerals and metals used in traditional fossil fuel-based energy production.
In conclusion, deep-sea mining poses significant threats to the ocean and its ecosystems, as well as to indigenous communities and local economies. African governments must reject this practice and instead pursue sustainable alternatives that prioritize the protection of the ocean and the well-being of communities.
A ban on deep sea mining is important to protect the ocean for the future generation.
ACCRA, Ghana — At an open shed along the coast of Bortianor in Accra, one can hear the chatter of market women who hang around the landing beach most mornings in hope of buying fish to trade as fishers pull their nets miles away to the shore.
“Sometimes, it takes as long as four hours to bring our nets ashore,” artisanal fisherman George Kowukumeh said. “And over the years, we have witnessed a drastic reduction in our catch.”
Artisanal fisherman George Kowukumeh at Bortianor landing beach, credit: AL-Fattah
There are currently about 150 fishing canoes operating at the Bortianor landing beach according to industry experts.
In Ghana, the artisanal fishing sector directlyemploy over 200,000 fishers, delivering 80 percent of total fish supply locally and provides livelihood to over 2 million people including thousands of market women in the value chain.
When it comes to fish, Ghanaian women have traditionally been confined to processing and retailing. The role of women is significant because they add value to fresh fish through processing, while distributing and preserving fish to ensure its availability long after the peak season and allowing it to reach consumers far from the landing beach.
However, the near collapse of the pelagic fish stock, which is the main target for artisanal fishers has left fishers and women in the value chain vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
A two-month investigation by Gideon Sarpong based on interviews with dozens of fishery experts, researchers, fishers and women in the value chain has shown declining income levels for thousands of fishing households partly blamed on climate change and the rise in ocean temperature. A non-existent government intervention program to support fishing communities, particularly women who are very vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change has left them to their fate.
Climate change impact on fishers and fishmongers
It is over three hours since the fishers began pulling their nets at the Bortianor landing beach. There is an obvious anxiety among the market women and fishmongers gathered at the shore who buy their fish directly from the fishers.
Agnes Lamptey, a fishmonger for over 30 years explains the reason for the anxiety: “when there is no catch, we do not get any fish to process for selling. We can’t even provide for our children. My children are in high school and are forced to stay at home when there is a meagre catch.”
Moments after the conversation with Agnes, the fishers manage to bring their catch to the shore. “The catch today is disappointing and full of garbage,” local fisher, George Kowukumeh said. “Several hours of very hard work has produced less than 500 cedis ($62) worth of fish for the 9-member crew, what do we do with this?”
Fishers at Bortianor landing beach in Accra pull their nets to shore, credit: Al-FattahCatch by fishers at Bortiano landing beach, contains plastic waste, credit: AL-Fattah
Looking dejected and disappointed, some of the market women decide to wait a little longer for other fishing canoes that are yet to return to the shore. For the fishers, the disappointment is gradually becoming a routine as they quickly prepare to mend their nets.
In 2019, the Sustainable Fisheries Management research revealed that despite increasing fishing effort by the artisanal fishing fleet in Ghana’s waters, small pelagic fish catch has fallen by over 85 percent, from the peak in reported landings of 138,955 metric tonnes recorded in 1996. The researchers blamed climate change and other man-made activities such as illegal fishing as a major cause for the decline in pelagic fish stock in the country’s waters.
Dr. Opoku Pabi, lecturer and senior research fellow at the Institute for Environmental and Sanitation Studies, University of Ghana explained that, “fish catch is strongly related to surface water and atmospheric temperatures; generally, the lower the temperatures, the higher the fish catch.”
“This does vary somewhat across species, however: the catch for Pelagic (round sardinella) peaks when sea water temperature is at its lowest” he added.
Data from a research paper he co-authored showed that Ghana has experienced a, “steady rise in atmospheric and sea water temperatures since the 1960s, with the latter increasing by an average of 0.011degree Celsius yearly.”
The paper also noted that the: “end of the rainy season” which traditionally signals the start of the main fishing season has become very “unpredictable due to variability in rainfall distribution patterns, exacerbating poverty and indebtedness among artisanal fishers and women in the value chain.”
Traditionally, women in the fishing communities across Ghana – particularly, the queen fishmongers – have owned boats and financed trips, guaranteeing them a portion of the catch.
But this traditional system is giving way as profits fall. Fishmonger, Agnes Lamptey whose husband is also a fisherman counts her loses after investing in the day’s fishing trip.
She explained: “the fuel prices are expensive. I contributed 100 cedis ($12) to the day’s fishing trip and they returned with basically nothing. So can you imagine, I lose about 3000 cedis ($370) in a month if there’s no daily catch. We are really suffering especially, we the women. We need money to take care of our children and keep our business going.”
Agnes Lamptey, Fishmonger and trader at Bortianor, Accra, credit: AL-Fattah
Steve Trent, chief executive of Environmental Justice Foundation, an NGO that monitors economic and environmental abuses has warned that any further decline in Ghana’s fish stock, particularly pelagic species would be, “catastrophic and have huge socio-economic costs.”
A 2021 studywhich focused on the effects of decline in fish landings on the livelihoods of coastal communities showed that decline in fish landings has “translated into low-income levels” for households that have directly depended on fishing over the years.
According to the study, 53 percent of fishing households maintained that they had seen a reduction in their incomes over the last five years.
Closed fishing season – a painful solution?
In response to the dwindling fish stock in Ghana’s waters, the Fisheries Ministry in April, 2022 announced a one month closed fishing season for artisanal fishers and semi-industrial vessels which began on July 1st. The minister, Mrs. Mavis Hawa Koomson in a statement argued that the, “closed season was agreed on based on scientific evidence and stakeholder consensus to reduce the excessive pressure and over-exploitation of stocks in the marine sub-sector which will help replenish the fish stocks.”
Despite the consensus among various stakeholders on the need to protect spawners from capture during the breeding season, fishers and women in the value chain in several fishing communities including at Jamestown, Elmina, Tema and Bortianor have fiercely rejected this directive.
Jacob Tetteh, spokesperson for fishers at the Bortianor landing beach insisted that the closed season must be “scrapped” despite admitting to a drastic reduction in fish catch over the years.
“The fisherfolks work is not like government work, what they get is what they spend in the house every day. So how will they survive during this period” he argued.
“What will happen to all the women and their kids who depend on the ocean for their livelihood? A loss of revenue for a single day affects the entire community.”
The fisheries minister did not respond to requests for comment.
Jacob Tetteh, spokesperson for fishers at the Bortianor landing beach hold on to a closed season flyer, credit: AL-Fattah
The world has already warmed more than 1 degree Celsius(1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since the preindustrial era, and last year the oceans contained more heat energy than at any point since record-keeping began six decades ago.
According to a study published in the Journal Science last April, if humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continues and the ocean’s temperature continues to increase, roughly a “third of all marine animals could vanish within 300 years.”
Way forward
To reduce the vulnerability of climate change impact on Ghana’s fishery sector, particularly women in the value chain, Daniel Doku Nii Nortey, deputy director of coastal resources NGO Hen Mpoano, has recommended a retraining and a skills development program for fishers and women processors.
The state must invest in “alternative livelihood training programs such as soap making, hairdressing, tailoring etc. in coastal communities,” Daniel said. “These will help families diversify their source of livelihood.”
For the many fishers and women in coastal communities across Ghana, the struggle for survival stares them in the face each morning.
“It is a hopeless situation,” said fishmonger Janet Mensah who inherited the trade from her mother over 20 years ago.
“I do not know what the future holds for me and my children in this profession, it all doesn’t make sense to me again. We need help.”
Fishmonger Janet Mensah at Bortianor, credit: AL-Fattah
Reporting and writing by Gideon Sarpong | Gideon Sarpong is Hub Leader at SOA Ghana
Ghana: Artisanal fishers blame dwindling fish stock on changes in climate & IUU activities
Kobina Atta has been fishing in Sekondi on the western coast of Ghana since age 20. Now at 51, he complains about the changes in the seasons, rise in sea level, and dwindling stock of fishes, having a toll on his livelihood.
“These days, the seasons have changed, we cannot differentiate between the Harmattan and the rainy seasons. It can rain today and in the next minute, the sun will be blazing. This really disrupts our activities,” he said.
This, he believes, has brought in its wake an increasing decline in fish stock and catch as fishing boats often returned from sea almost empty.
Atta, like many other artisanal fishers, has a strong conviction that changes in the climate is one of the driving forces behind the phenomenon.
Ghana’s Fisheries Sector
According to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture there are more than two million people in Ghana, or around 10 per cent of the population, who rely directly on fishing and related activities for their livelihoods.
A report published by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) in 2018 said Ghana accounts for about 11 per cent of the total artisanal canoes in West Africa with small-scale fishing employing around 80 per cent of all fishers in the country.
The EJF said widespread illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and destructive practices such as the use of dynamite, monofilament nets, DDT, and light, continually cause irreplaceable damage to marine ecosystems.
The Impact of Climate Change
In Ghana, ocean warming and acidification, arguably the two most dramatic effects of climate change on oceanographic conditions, are already wreaking havoc on those who make their living from the sea.
This is coupled with widespread IUU fishing, which spans from indiscriminate use of chemicals and explosives by canoe fishermen to increasing light fishing by both small-scale and tuna vessels.
Most fishermen complain that surface water fishes appear to be disappearing with reduction in the sizes of the fishes, attributing it to the changes in the marine environment.
The rise in sea levels has also resulted in coastal erosion, high tides in recent times, tidal waves affecting fishers, and storms making fishers unable to go for fishing expeditions as they wished.
“Nowadays we have noticed some changes in the sea. We have realised that the seawater has become warmer than it used to be,” said Atta.
Another fisherman, Samuel Tetteh, who has been fishing since age 15, said: “These days the fishes do not stay at the surface of the sea, they go deep down. You know for us in artisanal fishing, we have to see the fishes before we cast our nets, so sometimes we have to go long hours before we can see some fishes and cast our nets”.
At age 41, Tetteh said though climate change was a contributory factor, it could not be solely blamed for the decline in fish stock and mentioned engagement in light fishing among other IUU practices as other factors.
“The concentration of carbonic acid at the surface of the seawater makes it uncomfortable for fishes to stay at the surface. The fish now prefer to stay at the bottom than at the surface,” he said.
Another challenge has to do with the rise in sea levels, which the fishermen say is destroying many coastal lands.
“Sometimes we are unable to go to sea because of the high tides. We believe that the tidal waves as we have been witnessing in recent times are all as a result of changes in the climate,” Mr Tetteh said.
Nana Kweigya is a fisherman at Anomabo in the Central Region and the Chairman of the Canoe and Fishing Gear Owners Association of Ghana.
He said climate change is impacting negatively on artisanal fishing.
“Climate change has affected fisheries and continues to affect small-scale fisheries especially. There are pieces of evidence that point to the fact that it has increased acidity of the seawater and has, in turn, affected the production of fish,” he said.
Nana Kweigya said the sizes of fish had reduced and also believed that they were all as a result of global warming and climate change.
That, he said, had affected fish production because many of the eggs were destroyed long before they matured, resulting in a decline in fish stock.
Nana Kweigya explained that it was the reason fishermen had resulted to using light to attract fish before they cast their net.
“General I will say climate change is negatively impacting on fishing and limiting access to fish by artisanal fishers,” he said, and called for serious discussions on how to mitigate the impact of climate change on fishing and related activities.
However, in contrast, Mr. Socrates Segbor, the Fisheries Programmes Manager of EJF, believes that there are not enough scientific data to prove that climate change is impacting fishing.
Though he did not rule out its possible negative impact, he said the stories of the fishermen remained their opinion until they were scientifically proven.
For him, the lack of scientific data about the impact of climate change gave people the opportunity to speculate and lux about what to do to address the issues of IUU.
He, therefore, appealed to Ghana’s Fisheries Commission and other academic institutions to undertake scientific research on the impact of climate change in the fisheries sector to confirm or reject the opinions of the fishermen.
This report was supported with a micro grant from SOA Ghana
White Volta Picture credit: Iddrisu Zakaria, SOA Ghana Fellow
Nawuni is a small community located in the Kumbungu District of the Northern Region and a 45-minute drive from the regional capital Tamale.
The White volta, one of the longest rivers in Ghana passes through this community whose inhabitants are largely Ewes with pockets of Dagombas. The main economic activities in this community is fishing and vegetable farming.
The water serves as a huge source of livelihood for the people in the community and a home to treatment plants of the Ghana Water Company Limited which currently supplies three million gallons of water every day to five districts including the Sagnarigu Municipality and the Tamale Metropolis.
Despite its strategic location and importance to the people of the Northern Region, the community is fraught with a lot of challenges.
Beyond the perennial floods, lies an enormous sanitation challenge that appears overlooked but continues to pose unimaginable threats to the people. With some 84 households and nearly three thousand people, the community has no single public or household toilet facility and no proper means of disposing liquid or solid waste.
As a result, residents have resorted to desecrating the very body that holds the means to their livelihood as they openly defecate and throw rubbish indiscriminately into the White Volta River. Stand on the bank of the mighty Volta and scenes that greet you will be the sight of sacks of rèfuse, plastic bottles and human excreta wrapped in plastic bags. Very often, men are seen defecating into the river from their boats.
It is unsurprising that as per statistics available at the Dalun Health Center, a nearby community where the residents go to seek treatment, cholera has become the most prevalent condition in Nawuni.
Fishing which is also a source of livelihood is also under threat as the constant pollution of the river has diminished its fishing stock. Mohammed Habib is a fisherman. He knows the river like the back of his palm as he fished in it with his father since the age of five but as his dad becomes old and too frail to take the boat, Habib, for half a decade now, has been paddling the boat and casting the nets to provide for a family of six including himself, his wife whom he took not too long ago, his father and two younger siblings. I met him at the river bank with a heap of worms gathered before him that he cuts into pieces to fix into hooks in preparation for an expedition.
Iddrisu, SOA Ghana Fellow interviews fisherman Habib
He said to me that a good catch could fetch him 200 Cedis in a day but the problem is they have been experiencing dwindling fortunes in recent years. He pointed to an empty space further upstream and said women usually come all the way from Tamale to wait for them there and to buy their fresh fish but the table has turned as the unfavourable fortunes means the women don’t come anymore and they now have to go wherever the traders are to sell to them, a situation that has also turned pricing out of their favour. Asked whether the low catch could be
attributed to the incessant pollution of the White Volta, Habib replies in the affirmative. He said like humans, fish cannot thrive in the dirt.
“Fish and people are the same. They don’t like dirty things but every day we come and throw rubbish in this water, we do toilet in it and they eat them and may die even before we catch them,” Habib noted.
Peter Agbavor known popularly as Soldier, apart from fishing also operates an engine boat that ferries people across to communities beyond the river. He confirms to me all that has been said by Habib. He said before they virtually were casting their nets behind their homes but for the constant pollution which has diminished the fish stock, they now are forced to travel farther in their boats to fish and this sometimes means passing the night in the Volta. Soldier, also lamented the disposal of rubbish in the river is not only detrimental to aquatic life but to themselves as sometimes their nets are destroyed when instead of trapping fish, they trap sacks of rèfuse, bags of faecal matter and Others. He appealed that authorities build for them household latrines and place rèfuse containers at vantage points to enable the proper disposal of solid waste.
Iddrisu, SOA Ghana Fellow travels on the White Volta
Assembly Member for Nawuni Electoral Area, Hon. Alhassan Yussif, said the poor sanitation situation remains a bigger challenge and something he does not sleep over. He disclosed that relentlessly he has pursued the Kumbungu District Assembly to intervene and to help his people overcome the sanitation challenge but has always been met with one excuse or another.
For the pollution of the White Volta, he revealed that engineers of the Ghana Water Company have complained severally to him to tell his electorates to stop disposing waste into the river as the cost for treating and distribution of raw water has more than tripled. He tells me that he and his people have no option than to defecate and throw waste into the river as they have no other ways to rid their community of filth.
The Assembly Member concludes our interview by appealing to benevolent individuals, groups and NGOs to come to the rescue of his people.
Pollution is the introduction of harmful substances into the environment. These substances have adverse effects on the environment and humans who live within the environment. The main sources of pollution in Ghana are improper waste disposal, sewage disposals, open defecation and gold mining especially the menace known as galamsey (illegal gold mining).
The coastal area of Ghana is home to several ecosystems which provide several services to the people living in the area. These ecosystems include the mangrove ecosystem, lagoons, estuaries, beaches, and the sea. Coastal communities depend on the services which could be provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural from these ecosystems. The benefits from these ecosystems form the livelihoods of these coastal communities. Livelihood as described by Wikipedia is “a means of securing the basic necessities of life”. These activities encompass the benefits of the environment to the coastal communities and these could be threatened and severely impacted when the environment is no more conducive or healthy due to pollution.
Environmental pollution is a major threat to the sustainability of people’s livelihoods. “If your environment is healthy, the means to meet your needs would be readily available”. Any activity distorting these services or benefits would have some impact on the livelihood of the people. The levels of these impacts on their livelihood are proportional to the magnitude of the pollution. “Our environment defines our well-being and if the environment is sick (unhealthy), the humans in the environment would be sick”. There is an unavoidable synchronization of a man’s health with his environment. A man can never be dis-synchronized from his environment,- “what goes around comes around”. If you treat your environment well, your environment will treat you well in return.
This menace called “pollution” is attributed to the action of individuals/entities who make use of the environment in an unsustainable way, thereby introducing pollutants into the environment. Some of the actions that result in pollution in the coastal area of Ghana are discussed below;
Gold mining
Ghana is known to be the largest gold producer in Africa after South Africa. Gold mining in Ghana was the reason the country was named “Gold Coast”. The sector according to the International Trade Administration in the year 2020 has since attracted international investment since the country’s Economy Recovery Programme in 1983. The sector accounts for about one-third of the revenues generated from exportations and also contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country. About 95% of the total mineral revenue by the country is from the gold mining sector.
Gold mining is however a threat to the environment where they are done. Lands are been degraded due to the mining activities and as a result several endemic species of both flora and fauna are lost. The majority of the water bodies in Ghana especially water bodies in the Western and Ashanti regions are seriously threatened by the mining activities. The water bodies have been rendered uinhabitable to aquatic life and their use by humans for their livelihood activities has greatly been affected. Of the three-river system in Ghana (the Coastal, Volta, and South-western River system), the Volta-river system appears to have less share of the impacts of the mining activities. The Southwestern Rivers (Pra and Ankobra) are seriously impacted and are unfit for any use as the mining activities have led to the siltation of the water bodies resulting in aesthetic impairment and benthic habitat destruction. Several species of shell and finfishes are no more found in the rivers. In an interaction with the people of Anlo (Shama district) community, they said “we do harvest oysters in our waters before, but now oysters are no more here”.
The people of Anlo previously depended on the water from the Pra River as groundwater in the coastal areas is saline due to seawater intrusion. Now, they struggle with good water supply for their daily activities. “We cook and drink the water in the past, but now we cannot even use the water to wash our clothes not to think of cooking and drinking it” the people of Anlo expressed bitterly.
Furthermore, in countries where aquaculture and mariculture are practiced, the rivers and other coastal waters are very important in the industry, but in the case of Ghana, the industry is experiencing serious challenges from water pollution due to mining activities. The adjacent ocean and estuaries are not left out, as the quality of these water bodies is degraded and made uninhabitable or unconducive for aquatic life. This therefore has implications on the fishery industry as fishermen who are used to fishing in the coastal waters have to travel far (to other communities), move farther into the sea, or migrate to other countries for fishing, costing them much. For instance, going farther into the sea requires the purchase of inshore vessels or industrial vessels. In cases where these options are beyond their reach, they have been rendered jobless.
Improper waste disposal
Improper waste disposal in the coastal areas has been a culture of so many in developing and underdeveloped countries. The case of Ghana is not different as communities along the coast are found disposing their wastes directly into water bodies without thinking about the implication of their actions. Mr. Kojo Nyamekye, a fisherman in Elmina said in an interview: “some of the wastes are being swept into the lagoon and the sea by the people while some of the wastes are brought from their homes and disposed into the sea”. In some areas, people dispose of their waste directly into drainages and when it rains, the waste is washed into rivers and other water bodies. Some of these wastes end up blocking drainages and lead to flooding of the communities. These wastes are from both domestic and industrial sources. Plastic and other polymers are major components of the wastes. Mr. Kwame Ackon, a fisherman and carpenter at the Elmina fish landing site confirmed that most of the wastes being caught along with fish were mainly plastics and other polymers. He added, “some people take wastes to the sea while others bring wastes from the sea in form of catch”.
Sewage and sludges are mostly disposed into water bodies as industries and residential homes see the water bodies as the most convenient place to dispose of their wastes. Several drainages are been channeled into the Benya lagoon and Fosu lagoon in Elmina and Cape Coast respectively. Recently Fosu lagoon was dredged to get rid of some wastes and allow fresh water to enter into the lagoon but waste disposal into and around the lagoon has not stopped. Toilets are channeled into some of these water bodies and fecal wastes are emptied directly into them.
Open defecation.
Open defecation is the practice of defecating or excreting outside or in an open space instead of a toilet. These open spaces include beaches, bushes, canals, rivers, and other water bodies. It is a habit commonly seen among people living along the coasts and water bodies in developing countries like Ghana. Males and females come out in their numbers to defecate at the beach especially in the early hours of the day. As seen at Sawuma (Nzema East, District), males and females have different sides of the beach where they do “their thing”. Women were seen using the secluded part of the beach while men use the open beach. Open defecation in the coastal communities is majorly caused by inadequate private and public toilet facilities and also some attitudes where some people preferred the open space than using the toilet facilities. Some of the people expressed, “we enjoy the fresh air or the breeze at the beach when defecating”. Another way that is quite different from using open space is “defecating into rubber bags, papers, and plastic containers and pouring them directly into the water”. Mangrove patches and bushes around lagoons are mostly used by the people as their toilets where they defecate whereas in some cases, pits are dung in the mangrove patches and their excreta are dropped into the pit. For people living around river estuaries, sometimes they directly do it into the water or dispose of it using plastic containers or rubber bags. Open defecation in the coastal areas has been linked to a lot of health issues and diseases like cholera, child mortality, poor nutrition, and poverty resulting from livelihood threats.
Fertilizers and Harmful Chemicals
The use of chemicals in agricultural practices is widely done in Ghana. For example, the herbicides used in the clearing of lands, pesticides used in the fumigation of cash crops especially cocoa, pineapples, and watermelons. Some of the people interviewed in a survey at Anlo, Shama district, identified some of these chemicals as threats to their environment as they affect non-target organisms and sometimes they are washed into the water bodies. In response to this, Mr. Kojo Nyamekye said “some fishermen make use of chemicals when fishing in the sea and other coastal water bodies”. Many fishermen are engaged in destructive fishing using chemicals and detergents mixed with explosives in fishing in the country. The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) global outreach programme that was carried out recently by the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (University of Cape Coast) on educating the students of Ampenyi M/A Basic School on the theme “Environmental education towards the conservation of Biodiversity in the Brenu Lagoon Ghana”, students were asked in the course the programme the sources of pollution to Brenu Lagoon. It was surprising to hear a student mentioning Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). DDT is an insecticide used in agriculture that has been banned in the United States in 1972 but is still widely used in this part of the world with long-lasting adverse effects on the environment. The insecticide is also used in the country in controlling mosquitoes. In addition, the use of fertilizers and other chemicals in agricultural and fishing practices has adverse effects on the environment as they pollute both surface and underground waters, and these elicit some health issues in the humans who directly or indirectly depend on them. Fish (es) caught with chemicals when consumed by humans could have both acute and chronic health effects.
Other effects of pollution threatening the coastal communities are:
Degradation of water quality resulting in depleted fisheries.
Decrease in aesthetics of water bodies and beaches, which negatively impacts tourism in the affected areas.
Reduction in ecosystem services leading to a shortage of provisional services from the water bodies. For example, several fisher folks are experiencing a reduction in their income as a result of low fish catch, and sometimes, several amounts of investment are wasted as the fishermen returned from the sea with garbage in their nets.
Loss of agricultural land for cocoa planting and other cash crops production in the western region of Ghana due to land degradation and habitat fragmentation.
Marine contamination is a major hazard to our ocean. Is there a solution to the problem of marine pollution?. Humans are both a part of the problem and the solution to ocean pollution, whether they live near the shore or far inland. We can all contribute to reducing the amount of pollution entering our oceans by changing our attitudes and everyday habits.
