Interactions between traditional and modern institutions in environmental governance of mining in Asutifi North District of Ghana

Extraction of natural resources through mining creates land use conflicts, economic upheaval and environmental harm. Environmental governance is a system developed to allocate different decision making authority levels over environmental resources to different social actors to alleviate recognised environmental dilemmas. However, the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of environmental governance depends on participation of various stakeholders including the state, communities, businesses, and non-governmental organisations and, in countries with the history of colonialism like those in Africa, traditional institutions in regulatory processes. This paper assesses the interaction between traditional and modern institutions regarding environmental governance in mining and explores the potential for integration of the traditional and modern institutions to facilitate environmental governance of mining at the community level in Asutifi North District of Ghana. The case study design was used and a total of 52 respondents (29 households, 23 institutions) were interviewed. Even though the institutions had several fora for interaction, the traditional authorities were not effectively participating in higher levels of decision making in mining environmental governance. There was potential for the activities of the institutions to be integrated if the traditional institutions were given more representation and higher decision making authority in mining governance. Participation of traditional institutions in environmental impact assessment processes were in positions where they could only provide complaints and suggestions to the regulators, however the decision to license the mining and the distribution of the costs and benefits were taken by the state institutions, leading to community agitations.