Some 1,600 delegates from 160 nations are moving forward on negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol as they gather this week in Accra, Ghana. The meeting is the third in a series of eight that will culminate in the adoption of a new global climate-change accord in Dec. 2009. "The negotiations need to speed up and become more concrete if governments are to meet the deadline they set for themselves," United Nations Climate Change Secretariat Yvo de Boer warned at the beginning of the meeting. And it seems progress is being made, as delegates express a general good feeling toward having developing countries set greenhouse-gas reduction targets for specific industries, while holding developed countries to national targets. The issue is complex and many details remain to be hashed out, but "people are now talking about the same idea in the same language," says one observer. Specific greenhouse-gas reduction targets for developed countries will be discussed at a December meeting in Poland.

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European Union laws prohibiting the export of hazardous materials aren't keeping shipments of electronic waste out of West Africa, according to a new Greenpeace report. Traders obtain e-waste in the E.U. and ship it off "under the false label of 'second-hand goods,'" says the report, adding, "Sending old electronic equipment to developing countries is often hailed as 'bridging the digital divide.' But all too often this simply means dumping useless equipment on the poor." Soil samples taken near two e-waste scrapyards in Ghana showed dangerous levels of phthalates, chlorinated dioxins, lead, and other toxic metals; the report notes that much of the disassembling is done by children. Companies must "take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of their products," says Martin Hojsik of Greenpeace, and "not allow their products to end up poisoning the poor around the world." Greenpeace has previously reported on sketchy e-waste situations in southeast Asia and China and India.

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Amenga-Etego.

Photo: Dave Wendlinger.

The western African nation of Ghana, tucked under the chin of the continent, is dominated by the enormous Lake Volta, a sprawling reservoir that arcs through the midsection of the country. Though there appears to be water, water everywhere, an estimated 70 percent of Ghana's people lack access to clean, piped drinking water. Rudolf Amenga-Etego, a 40-year-old Ghanaian attorney, is determined to change that.

To Amenga-Etego, the biggest obstacle to wider water access is water privatization, especially large-scale privatization schemes backed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He recently mobilized labor unions, rural residents, and many other Ghanaians to oppose a World Bank and IMF push for water privatization in Ghana. In early 2003, in the face of public pressure, the government agreed to suspend the project. Now, as the director of the Globalization Response Program for a Ghanian nonprofit organization called the Integrated Social Development Center, Amenga-Etego is campaigning to make safe drinking water available to everyone in the country by 2010.

Amenga-Etego's work carries serious risks. As a student activist in Ghana in the politically chaotic 1980s, he was jailed many times, and spent seven months living in hiding. Ghana now has a more stable and democratic government, and Amenga-Etego is able to work in relative safety, but he says he is still watched by members of the national intelligence bureau.

Amenga-Etego was awarded one of six 2004 Goldman Environmental Prizes in a ceremony in San Francisco, Calif., on April 19. He says he will spend some of the prize money on a reservoir for his own community, and will use the rest of it to network and coordinate activists throughout Ghana. He spoke to Grist from San Francisco.

Eyes on the Prize -- Interviews with the 2004 Goldman winners

Introduction

She's the Bee's Knees -- Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla of India

Shell Game -- Margie Eugene-Richard of Louisiana

Ghana But Not Forgotten -- Rudolf Amenga-Etego of Ghana

The Young and the Relentless -- Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho of East Timor

Roll on, Colombia -- Libia Grueso of Colombia

Georgia on Her Mind -- Manana Kochladze of the Republic of Georgia

Please describe how the lack of clean drinking water impacts Ghanaians.

It's what they need for the care of their household. The lack of it affects the care of patients who have HIV and tuberculosis, it affects the care of babies, and it makes it more difficult to take care of sanitation in the home. The lack of clean water causes typhoid and cholera -- 70 percent of the disease in the country is waterborne. Women have to walk long distances to find water, and girls -- who are mostly responsible for getting water -- certainly lose time in terms of school hours, so it affects the overall educational standards of women.

How have these problems been affected by the actions of the IMF and World Bank?

They have played a major role. Before they got involved, we had a system where industries and elites in cities paid a little more to subsidize the water consumption of rural folks, the lower-income segment of society. The World Bank and IMF have introduced what they call a demand-driven policy, where water will only go to households that pay for it. Privatization of water systems was a condition for giving Ghana a grant to rehabilitate and expand its water systems, and privatization brought about huge price hikes and created another barrier to access.

What led you to focus your energies on this problem?

Fetching water from a well in Accra, Ghana.

Photo: Will Parrinello.

First of all, I live in a community that is poor, so I see firsthand how people struggle in their daily lives just to access water. This pricks my conscience. As an attorney, I've had occasions where neighbors came to consult me -- they had been unable to pay for their water, so they had reconnected their system illegally and been written to by the company. They were living with the whole cycle of no money, no service, and the threat of prosecution and psychological trauma. If you live with these people, you can only be moved to want to assist. That led me to get to the cause of the problem, and I found it was water privatization, so I decided that was one of the things we had to fight.

What's been your most successful strategy?

I think the most successful thing was getting the labor movement to act in conjunction with poor communities, issuing statements of protest and making it very clear through demonstrations that they can no longer accept privatization as part of their lives. About once every two months, there is a march somewhere or a major rally where the community meets and expresses anger and frustration about privatization and World Bank and IMF interference.

That got a response from the government. Every government wants to be voted into power, and they knew that privatization would make them unpopular. Multinational companies saw that everyone was saying no, and they knew that it would be uncomfortable working in the country. The key was international solidarity -- we collaborated with groups in the U.S. and the U.K., where the multinationals come from, and those groups were protesting at company headquarters and against the IMF.

How do you think drinking water should be managed and distributed?

Because water is so essential -- it's life itself -- water ought to be in public hands. Communities should be able to hold officials accountable for pollution or other problems -- if you leave it in private hands, the companies are accountable only to shareholders. It should be publicly managed, but with the involvement of communities. The community involvement checks corruption, assures accountability, and assures democratic action if the officers don't perform.

Because the World Bank backed out of privatization, the majority of water in the country is still public. There is a community in Ghana called Savelugu where the community came into partnership with [the Ghana public] water company -- it's what we call a public-public partnership. The community does all the collection [of fees] and the distribution, and it does all the pricing. The company is responsible for checking the water quality. There's been 100 percent collection for the last three years, so we use that as an example.

Etego speaks to Ghanaians about sutainable water management.

Photo: Will Parrinello.

Do you think there are any cases where privatization could improve access to water?

If the price of water is left to the market to determine, there will always be a demand for water, so the price will continue to be pushed up. So if water is a human right, then we cannot allow the price to be determined by market. I cannot see it as an efficient allocator of water.

What do you say to other countries and cities dealing with their own water-privatization proposals?

I always tell them, first and foremost: The community has to have ownership. The community must, through its elected representatives, have a say in how the water is managed, and by whom. The other thing is that the community must be responsible enough to help the water supplier, which is hopefully a public supplier -- the community must show civic responsibility by reporting leaks in pipelines, places where water is wasted. Last but not least, there should be the ability to provide water at very low prices or free to members of the community who cannot pay. If there is a home for the aged, or for people with HIV, we should share the burden to ensure that such groups are taken care of. That's a matter of our duty to other human beings.

I understand you have been jailed and forced underground because of your political work. Where have you found the inspiration to continue?

In my country, when you go out there, you see poor women with babies on their backs, walking along and looking for safe water. You need to have a really, really, really hard heart not to sympathize. There's so much deprivation. The water marches that we do in Accra -- you can't see all those people marching in the streets and abandon them.

What is the most pressing issue your group is facing now?

The World Bank has insisted that it should put in place a management service contract for five years. We think the management service contract is meant to cool down tempers, to make it look like they are no longer doing privatization. But the management service contract is a form of privatization, because they're going to give the management to multinational corporations. This is an election year, so we are going around to various electoral areas and asking people not to vote for those who support the privatization of water.

How can activists in the United States help your cause?

The first thing is that because we're dealing with the IMF and the World Bank, people need to confront these institutions and demand that loans for essential services should be condition-free. The other thing they can do is share their research on issues that will aid our campaign. For instance, if there's a new technology that will supply water simply and cost-effectively, that would help us make our argument, help us convince the government.

What does this award mean to you?

When you are working in a poor, obscure country, you don't know that anyone's listening or watching. It's an honor for me and my colleagues -- we're happy to know that someone has recognized our work. The resources will help us in expanding our networks -- we hope to increase our capacity and our ability to confront the World Bank and the IMF.

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At I Trust My Legs, an illegal mining camp along a gray stream in the West African nation of Ghana, trespassers have bored vertical shafts deep into the ground. On a recent morning, Maxwell Adzoka strapped a lamp to his head, pressed his bare back and shoeless feet against the slick clay walls of one of these shafts, and climbed down, his yellow bulb disappearing into the darkness. When he reemerged, he was bearing thick stones rippled with gold, enough to buy meat, palm wine, and clothes for his eight children. It was a lucky day for Adzoka, and not only because of his find: He could just as easily have died from a collapsed tunnel, mercury poisoning, or a rifle shot.

Maxwell Adzoka descends.

Across Africa, in countries with rich mineral reserves and barren economies, thousands of the unemployed dig for fortunes on land controlled by large mining companies. Operating illegally and unregulated, these miners use primitive extraction techniques not seen in the United States since the California gold rush a century ago. With dynamite, pickaxes, mercury, and the strength of their arms, they earn a living at great threat to their health and environment.

Located on West Africa's Gold Coast, Ghana earns the majority of its foreign exchange from gold, most of it extracted by multinational corporations. The government says these companies funnel money into public coffers and minimize environmental impacts, but disaffected villagers say the firms have ravaged their lands and given little in return. As an alternative, many locals support the illegal miners, known as galamsey, despite the threats posed by their toxic methods. Concentrated in Ghana's heavily excavated southwestern rainforests, the galamsey comprise one of the largest groups of illegal miners on the continent.

Small-scale mining was a respected tradition in Ghana for centuries, but became a persecuted profession after the British colonized the region in the early 19th century and banned the practice. Ghana's independent government legalized small-scale mining in 1989, but the government grants few mining concessions to peasants, forcing most people to mine illicitly.

Adzoka bristles over his lack of a legal place to dig, recalling how his ancestors mined freely. "They were working in peace, they were not having any problems," he said, gazing toward the trenches of I Trust My Legs from his stoop below a tree. "But now, we are being harassed."

Adzoka and other galamsey at I Trust My Legs.

Established 11 years ago, I Trust My Legs earned its name in 2000, when miners ran from a police raid. Now the 3,000 galamsey here rely on a committee that bribes the police to turn a blind eye to their illegal mining activity. Amid piles of silt and the drone of rusty water pumps, they hammer rocks in unstable tunnels that are buttressed here and there with boards. If the mining company that controls this land decides to return, another raid could force the galamsey away.

Since mining began at I Trust My Legs, Adzoka estimates that 10 workers have died here. Collapsing mine shafts during the rainy season have killed the most, but over the long run, many more could die from mercury exposure. Miners inhale mercury vapors when they heat the element in boiling pots to purify gold. Discarded into streams, mercury also builds up in the fish widely consumed by villagers. In humans, mercury exposure can cause kidney problems, arthritis, memory loss, miscarriages, and psychotic reactions.

This miner has struck gold.

Adzoka has mined with mercury for 20 years and he fears he will soon feel its effects. Nevertheless, he still handles it with his bare hands. "Even though it is dangerous and poisonous," he said, "there is nothing I can do about it."

At 53, Adzoka sports the well-toned arms and legs of a man in his 20s. In a country where the average life expectancy is 57, he has already outlived many in less hazardous lines of work. The only signs of his age are his receding hairline and a round belly that overhangs the band of his muddy shorts. He eats well, thanks largely to the gold he digs from the ground.

Adzoka grows palm trees, cassava, and pineapple on his two acres of land, earning an income on par with the national average of $340 a year. He and his family could survive on farming alone, he said, but the extra $150 a month he earns from mining helps pay for medicine, school supplies, and a well-rounded diet.

Chief Nana Kofi Dei II.

A few miles down a potholed road from where I talked with Adzoka, the chief of the village of Dumasi, Nana Kofi Dei II, sat on a throne in his humbly furnished living room. He wore rings on six fingers, a bracelet, a thick arm band, an ankle band, two long necklaces with pendants, and a crown -- all made of ornately cast gold. Normally, he keeps this finery locked in a closet and brings it out only for ceremonies. To sell it would dishonor the 10 generations of his ancestors who wore it and erase one of the few remaining signs that villagers in this mud-hut town once controlled the precious minerals beneath their feet.

Until a few years ago, locals still mined gold at Dumasi. The village brimmed with more than 3,000 galamsey who had fled from government clampdowns on camps elsewhere. These miners flocked to the village, lining the one paved street with impromptu houses and dotting the surrounding hills with deep shafts sunk for gold. Mercury flowed from these sites into Dumasi's three streams -- and into the villagers. A study completed by the U.N. Industrial Development Organization recently found that the majority of villagers sampled -- including non-miners -- carried unsafe levels of mercury in their bodies. The concentrations found in fish were up to three times higher than levels deemed safe by the U.S. EPA.

A large mining company, now owned by Canadians and known as Bogoso Gold Limited, came here in 1990 with plans to mine the hills using modern techniques -- and no mercury. It seemed to Dei like a good proposition. "We thought the company would give some relief [from poverty and environmental problems]," he said, "not that it would make the situation worse." Dei also hoped Bogoso Gold would hire villagers for well-paying mining jobs. But he soon realized the company required relatively few people to operate its heavy machinery, and wanted employees with more education than anyone living in the village had received.

Meanwhile, the thousands of galamsey who once worked here were gradually forced to leave. One of them was Adzoka. When the police raided the camp, firing their guns into the night, he fled through the forest and badly cut his face. Others fared much worse. "To escape, some people jumped into the mine pits," he said, "and that was the end." After the galamsey left and Bogoso Gold took over, only 2,500 villagers remained, down from a peak population of 6,000. Daily sales at Dei's small pharmacy -- once a respectable $20 -- plummeted to less than $3. Farmers and other vendors also suffered. "Now children are not in school because their parents are not employed," Dei said.

Devastation wrought by Bogoso Gold near Dumasi.

Once Bogoso Gold began mining, it bulldozed the trees and topsoil from hills, removed entire slopes, destroyed the village's three streams, and polluted its groundwater. The company currently hauls drinking water in with tanker trucks. Until the mining ended about two years ago, it took place 24 hours a day, sometimes less than one city block from where people lived. Dei Nkrumah, a farmer, said blasting from the mine site once sent a stone sailing into the air and through the tin roof of his kitchen. "If somebody was in the house at the time the stone came through, he could have died," Nkrumah said, staring up at the tennis ball-sized puncture. "It was dangerous."

The General Manager for Bogoso Gold, Peter Claringbull, declined to comment for this story.

Bogoso Gold built Dumasi a school and community center and provided it with poles and cables for electricity. To some extent, the company will be required to restore the land it has mined near the village with grass and trees. Despite these improvements, Dei said he preferred life with the galamsey. "There was no disruption of our land, because we had the galamsey, but still enough land for farming," he said. "We wish the mining companies had not come."

A short walk from I Trust My Legs, the village of Nakabah swells with the galamsey who left Dumasi. The chief there, Nana Kobinai Andoh, takes a moment to converse with other elders when asked which he prefers, galamsey or mining companies.

"The galamsey mining helps the community most because a lot of people can go and do it," he says from his chair in a courtyard between two turquoise huts. "Formerly, burglary used to be common here," he added, "but it is no more because people are employed [at I Trust My Legs]."

Yet the galamsey still technically commit theft, because the concession at I Trust My Legs is owned by Bogoso Gold. Andoh said he thought the company might soon return to the area, and he planned to ask it and the government to officially give part of the concession to the galamsey, as a compromise. But that is unlikely, government officials said, because mining companies refuse to give up valuable goldfields.

The creek that runs through I Trust My Legs.

Another obstacle is the location of I Trust My Legs in one of the most dangerous places imaginable for galamsey mining. The ground under the camp is laced with sulfide ores, according to Michael Sandoh Ali, district officer for the western region at the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency. When dug up and exposed to oxygen, these ores generate sulfuric acid, which further dissolves harmful heavy metals such as iron, copper, lead, and mercury, sending them into streams and groundwater. Decades ago, a company mined at I Trust My Legs, then capped the sulfides with earth and topsoil. The galamsey have reopened the wound. As the owner of this concession area, Bogoso Gold is liable for the environmental harm caused by the galamsey. "The area has been rehabilitated and it has done well," Ali said. "But the galamsey came in and started working there. It's unfair."

Despite the problem, Ali said there is little he can do to solve it. "If I go and tell the police force that the devastation is too serious, that you have to get these people out of the place, then these people are given information that the police are coming," he said. "They just don't go to work the next day. You can never, ever track them down." Even if he could round up the miners, Ali added, local communities wouldn't stand for a clampdown on the galamsey. "It is part of the culture of the Ghanian."

The government of Ghanaian President John Kufuor announced a pragmatic plan to deal with galamsey mining last year, in which it pledged to give land to galamsey miners if they formed collective associations. According to the Wassai Association of Communities Affected by Mining, a Ghanaian environmental group that supported the plan, around 60 galamsey collectives have been formed, but the government still hasn't followed through on its pledge.

Bogoso Gold trucks in water because wells have been poisoned.

If the government gave the galamsey legal places to mine, communities might support a crackdown on illegal exploitation, said George Awudi, mining coordinator for Friends of the Earth in Ghana. Awudi said he would prefer well-regulated, small-scale mining to strip-mining by large companies. "If proper equipment was provided for them and proper training was done, then the mercury pollution could be controlled," he said.

Ahmed Nantoqmah, media relations manager for the Chamber of Mines, an industry group, countered that the government gives preference to large mining companies for good reason. "If you give a mining concession to the natives, they might mismanage," he said. "If you give it to a large company, it can do it better."

Unlike small miners, the mining companies pay 3 percent of their gross earnings to the government. Part of this money goes into a fund for environmental restoration and a portion goes to local chiefs. The remaining 80 percent funds government programs nationwide.

The signs of mining company programs were hard to miss on the road to I Trust My Legs. Hundreds of children in orange school uniforms clogged the road, going home after a day at the Prestea Goldfields School, where classes are subsidized by the mining company. Yet absent from this crowd were the seven children of Grace Ofori, who was on her way to the galamsey camp to sell boiled yams. She couldn't afford to pay her children's school fees, she said, but as long as she could sell to the galamsey here, she would at least be able to get by.

"It won't be easy if they leave because I don't have any skills," she said, as her children hovered around her in torn T-shirts. "So it will mean I cannot feed my family."

Before Adzoka descended his shaft again on the afternoon I spoke with him, he said the galamsey camp would remain in existence for as long as the bribing arrangement lasted with the police. But, he added, the arrangement was not to be trusted, as shown by the last raid -- the one that gave the camp its name. He laughed when asked if the name still rang true for him. "Yes," he said, "because I can run."

Editor's note: Locals report that Adzoka disappeared from I Trust My Legs after this story was reported. His whereabouts are unknown.

All photos by Josh Harkinson.

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