A review from environmental management to environmental governance: paradigm shift for sustainable mining practice in Gh
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A review from environmental management to environmental governance: paradigm shift for sustainable mining practice in Ghana Guang Li1 · Desmond Ato Koomson2 · Jingyu Huang2 · Ebenezer Impriam Amponsah3 · Williams Kweku Darkwah2 · Nicholas Miwornunyuie2 · Ke Li1 · Xianghang Dong1 Received: 16 June 2020 / Accepted: 13 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Industries in Ghana, over the centuries and for the sake of developments, have degraded the environment by polluting the air, water, and land through agriculture, manufacturing, construction, and other processes such as exploration of natural resources. The environmental policies in Ghana have been more of state "regulation" or "management" than "environmental governance" overseen by state ministries and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nevertheless, environmental degradation due to mining activities has been on the increase than ever. This article calls for the need of a change of the environmental policy framework in the mining sector in Ghana from state regulations to environmental governance. It presents "voluntary agreement" as one of the capable instruments in environmental governance for the mining industry. It also addresses the causes of the lack of application of the existing environmental policy framework in the mining industry and the future implications if the government continues with this framework. It also examines the possibility of the state and the mining industry to embrace the paradigm shift in environmental policies. Lastly, due to insufficient literature available on environmental sociology and environmental governance in Ghana, it serves as the literature for future research on other areas of environmental governance and environmental sociology in Ghana. Keywords Environmental governance · Environmental management · Galamsey · Smallscale artisanal mining · Illegal mining · Environmental policy framework · Sustainability
* Desmond Ato Koomson [email protected] 1
Key Laboratory of Songliao Aquatic Environment, Jilin Jianzhu University, Ministry of Education, Changchun 130118, Jilin, China
2
Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development On Shallow Lakes, Environmental Science and Engineering Department, College of Environment Science and Engineering, Hohai University, Ministry of Education, Nanjing, China
3
Research Center for Environment and Society, Department of Sociology, School of Public Administration, Hohai University, Nanjing, China
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1 Introduction The use of natural resources, such as extracting minerals and salt, has been a major factor for socioeconomic growth in many countries over the centuries. According to Allan Schnaiberg et al. (2002), the treadmill of production theory stipulated that people rely on a continuous flow of energy from nature and that each of us is in constant interaction with the environment around us (Schnaiberg et al. 2002). Mining has been the starting point for several series of economic and social changes that ma
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