"Sand winners" are people or companies that take sand from the beach front, and sell it on. This is completely illegal in Ghana as it ruins the environment, the beaches and tourism. For many years, sand winners have been taking trucks loads of sand from the beach fronts near Elmina almost EVERY DAY in industrial volumes! 

Where you could walk down a gentle slope to the beach, in places you now have to jump down a 2 metre cliff. The coastline between Brenu and Elmina was one of the most beautiful in Ghana, with miles of wide sandy beaches. As over 1500 cubic metres of sand was being removed every day, the land has eroded, and the beach is almost non-existent. Hotel resorts which provide valuable employment to local people and help to build the tourism trade, benefiting Ghana, the pathways used by local people from villages like Ankwanda to walk with their market produce to Elmina, all are in serious jeopardy.

What was a beautiful natural asset for Ghana, has now become an environmental disgrace. Although the practice of sand winning is completely illegal all the local and regional institutions seemed unable or unwilling to control the situation; the law seemed to count for nothing, and every day the erosion become worse. After over 3 years of campaigning, we have finally succeeded in getting the attention of relevant Ministers and a National Security task force have blocked the paths used by the trucks to get to the beach fronts.

If you want to see the beautiful Ghana beaches protected, and if you want the Ghana law to act as it should, please sign this petition so that we use it to push the Ministers for Environment, Tourism, Trade, Housing and Mines to ensure beach front sand winning is stopped every where in Ghana. Please also take a moment to write a message which will be sent to the Ministers, so that we can continue to put pressure on them to enforce the law.      

Dear Sir,

 

I would like to bring your attention to the destruction of the coastline at Elmina, by the illegal activity of sand mining. What used to be a beautiful natural and tourism asset, with gorgeous wide sandy beaches, has now turned into 2-3 metre cliff faces with more than 10 metres of land eroded and over fifty coconut trees fallen in the last 18 months. The beach has almost completely disappeared in many places, and the sand mining is continuous.

 

Although sand mining from beachfronts is illegal in Ghana, this practice has been going on between Brenu and Mmoframa Akyinim for many years, with on average 30 -40, 6 cubic metre trucks taking sand every day! Tourism, and the beautiful scenery are vital for Ghana, and the erosion is affecting landmark hotels such as Coconut Grove, and the newer Elmina Bay Resort. The 3 hotels which are worst affected employ over 100 people, and cater for thousands of tourists a year. This is all in jeopardy.

 

If this is not stopped, visitors will not come to this area anymore, the tourism industry will be affected, with consequences for both the local and national economic development.

 

I implore you to look into this tragic problem, and stop the illegal practice of sand winning at Elmina to try and restore some of the beautiful Ghanaian coastline.