Galamsey – A slow apocalypse

The end of the world doesn’t come with the crack of thunder, the fiery skies, or the ominous prophecies we like to scare ourselves with. No, here in the heart of Ghana, it creeps silently, like a slow rot eating through the bones of the land. It starts with a shovel in the dirt, a splash of mercury in a river, and a whispered deal in a back alley. This apocalypse has a name: galamsey. It’s a quiet killer, gnawing away at the very soul of the nation—not with fanfare or spectacle, but with the steady, methodical destruction of everything that once made Ghana breathe with life.

Illegal gold mining, they call it—galamsey. But what it really is, is a disease. It spreads across the land, borne not by the wind but by greed. The trees once stood tall and proud, and the rivers once ran clear and clean, but now? Now the forests are skeletons, stripped bare, and the rivers are nothing but blackened veins, pulsing with poison. It’s as if the land itself is gasping for air, and we stand by, watching it die, piece by piece.

The Rivers Scream, But No One Listens

Once upon a time, rivers like the Pra and Ankobra were the lifeblood of Ghana, sparkling in the sunlight, cradling life in their depths. Now they’re nothing more than cesspools, thick with chemicals, choking on mercury and cyanide. The fish that once danced beneath their surface now float lifeless, bellies up. The communities that relied on these waters for survival now stare at the murk, thirsty, desperate, and hopeless. This isn’t just water we’ve poisoned; it’s the veins of the earth itself, the lifeblood of thousands who’ve been left with nothing but the taste of death on their tongues.

And it’s not just the water. It’s the food we eat, the air we breathe. The poison seeps into the soil, creeping up into the crops, infecting the very roots of life. Families who have farmed this land for generations now find their fields barren, their crops tainted. Cancer, birth defects, and illnesses that once seemed distant now sit at their dinner tables, invited guests into a home once filled with health. It’s a slow-motion apocalypse, the kind that doesn’t make headlines but grinds away at a future until there’s nothing left but dust and memories.

The Land Groans, The Forests Cry

The forests used to be a sanctuary, a place where the air was thick with the scent of earth and leaves, where birds sang their songs and the wind danced through the trees. Now, what’s left? Stumps. Ash. Silence. The kind of silence that presses in on you, making you wonder what was once here, and why we let it go. For every tree that’s felled, for every acre of land turned into a wasteland of pits and rubble, it’s like a piece of Ghana’s soul has been ripped out and cast into the fire.

And we are not innocent in this. No, we’ve all played our part. For every bribe whispered in the shadows, for every look the other way, we’ve fed this monster. We’ve watched as our world crumbled, as the land we should have protected was sold to the highest bidder. This is the cost of inaction. This is the price of our silence.

A Descent Into Madness

It’s not just the land that’s dying. Society is unraveling right along with it. Galamsey pits brother against brother, community against community. Men, desperate for a scrap of gold, risk everything, climbing into the earth’s belly knowing it could swallow them whole at any moment. Collapsing tunnels, suffocating air, death lurking in every corner of the mines—it’s a daily gamble, and many lose. Children—children—play beside rivers that once were their lifeline, unaware that the water they splash in carries the seeds of sickness deep in its currents. Schools close, families fall apart, and the future that once stretched wide before them is now a tunnel, dark and choking, narrowing with every passing day. What chance does a child have when their playground is a toxic wasteland and their hands are blackened with dirt, not from play, but from work in the mines? Their childhood stolen, their dreams buried under piles of poisoned earth.

And all the while, the profits roll in for those at the top—those who watch from afar as the land they bleed dry turns into a graveyard of lost potential and broken futures.

Ghana’s Future—Written in Blood

It’s not just Ghana’s nightmare. Colombia, decades ago, walked this path. The coca plant, like galamsey’s gold, promised quick riches for the impoverished. But what followed was blood, bullets, and war. Armed militias sprang up, governments lost control, and the land that was once fertile was stained with the blood of conflict. Today, whispers in Ghana speak of the same future—armed men, desperate to protect their cut of the chaos, ready to kill for it. It doesn’t take much imagination to see where this road leads: corruption, violence, anarchy.

The stakes are global. The world’s insatiable hunger for gold drives this madness, and Ghana, once the proud Gold Coast, is being eaten alive by the very resource that once gave it power. The forests that once stood tall now lie in ruin, unable to absorb the carbon that poisons the planet. The mercury, the cyanide—they drift on the wind, seeping into oceans, crossing borders, infecting everything they touch. This isn’t just Ghana’s endgame. This is a piece of the global apocalypse, and we’re all complicit.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

How long can we watch this play out? How long before Galamsey is a beast too big to kill, a monster too many-headed to control? We’re running out of time, and the clock ticks louder with each passing day. This isn’t just a problem for the government to solve. It’s a reckoning, a call to every Ghanaian to stand up and fight for the land beneath their feet.

The rivers can flow clean again, and the forests can rise once more, but only if we act now. If we wait, if we hesitate, we’re not just losing the land—we’re losing the future, one poisoned river at a time. The question isn’t if we can stop it. The question is if we will. Ghana bleeds, but in the bleeding, there’s still time—a flicker of hope, a chance to rewrite the story before the land is lost forever. We cannot wait for heroes to come, for governments to save us. The earth cries for action, for redemption, and it must come from all of us, now, or never.

Because in the end, what will remain of us? Just shadows on a broken landscape, if we do nothing. But if we rise, if we fight, there’s still a chance to heal, to restore, to reclaim what we’ve lost.

Tempus fugit.

R. Dablah