Major manufacturing companies oppose mining in Atewa Forest, Ghana

Three worldwide production firms– BMW Group, Tetra Pak as well as Sch üco International— have actually signified problem over using bauxite sourced from Ghana’s Atewa Forest for aluminium, specifying that they would certainly hesitate to approve these supply chains as a result of the tragic as well as permanent impacts on individuals as well as wild animals that depend upon the woodland. Atewa Forest is a Key Biodiversity Area including hundreds of types, as well as a resource of tidy alcohol consumption water for greater than 5 million Ghanaians.

“Saving Atewa Forest from mining needs to be an inter-generational concern, as well as we more than happy as well as thankful that industries in the aluminium worth chain comprehend the relevance of a healthy and balanced woodland as well as the ecological solutions it supplies,” claimed Oteng Adjei, head of state of the Concerned Citizens of Atewa Landscape (CCAL), the grassroots motion promoting versus bauxite mining in Atewa Forest as well as the recipient of letters from all 3 firms. “We value their dedication to sustaining regional as well as global initiatives to protect Atewa Forest versus bauxite mining that is particular to damage the woodland, its water solutions as well as biodiversity.”

BMW Group, Tetra Pak as well as Sch üco International are all participants of the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI), developed to license the manufacturing as well as supply of aluminium consisting of bauxite removal. The letters from the firms state:

Sch üco: “Sch üco would certainly require our aluminium distributors not to provide aluminium stemmed from bauxite extracted in the Atewa Range Forest Reserve, as well as we mean to urge various other aluminium customers to join us in this dedication.”

Tetra Pak: “Sourcing aluminium generated from bauxite extracted in the Atewa Range Forest Reserve … offers a degree of danger that is entirely undesirable toTetra Pak No issue exactly how high the ecological criteria that are used, any kind of kind of mining at this website will certainly have an inescapable harmful influence on the worths integral in such an all-natural environment.”

BMW Group: “Bauxite from the area of the Atewa Forest requires to be in accordance with the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UNFCCC Paris Agreement on Climate Change as well as Ghana’s volunteer nationwide payments in the direction of the UNSustainable Development Goals If this is not the instance the BMW Group will certainly decline aluminium in its supply chains that comes from bauxite from the Atewa Forest.”

Campaigners to secure Atewa Forest have actually repetitively firmly insisted that buying bauxite extracted from in the Atewa Forest would certainly not fulfill ASI’s criteria which bauxite mining in Atewa would certainly endanger types with worldwide termination, threatening the Convention on Biodiversity as well as the Sustainable Development Goals, both of which collection clear targets to quit terminations.

While the firms identify the federal government of Ghana’s need to establish the aluminium market for financial growth as well as destitution decrease, their letters explain their dedications to sustainability. All 3 firms desire their distributors as well as sub-suppliers to fulfill their very same social as well as ecological criteria.

If bauxite from Atewa enters into Ghana’s aluminium supply, the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC) dangers outright denial of all Ghana’s bauxite as well as aluminium by aluminium customers such as these.

“Ensuring that our usage supports nature as opposed to ruining as well as diminishing it is a crucial action for which we have to all take duty. We salute these firms for establishing the criterion to conserve the Atewa Forest,” states Patricia Zurita, Chief Executive of BirdLife International.

In late 2016, the Ghanaian federal government started strategies to mine bauxite discovered underneath Atewa Forest as component of a monetary take care ofChina Extracting bauxite in Atewa would certainly call for ‘strip mining’ where the entire surface area layer of dirt is gotten rid of. This indicates a failure of the woodland in the extracted locations, together with all the biodiversity it includes. In 2019, excavators began to clear trees as well as develop gain access to roadways in Atewa Forest, also after a variety of global teams, led by A Rocha, as well as regional teams, currently led by CCAL, had actually invested years advising the federal government to secure Atewa Forest by transforming it right into a national forest.

Unlike Ghana’s existing bauxite mine at Awaso, which residents call a ‘desert of red mud’, Atewa Forest is including life, residence to at the very least 50 animal types, greater than 1,000 types of plants, at the very least 230 types of birds as well as greater than 570 butterflies– consisting of types discovered no place else worldwide. Atewa is a Key Biodiversity Area, a website of worldwide relevance to the perseverance of biodiversity as well as to the world’s general wellness. In a current publication, well-known biologist as well as writer Professor E.O. Wilson checklists Atewa Forest as one of the 38 crucial position on Earth that need to be alloted for nature’s advantage.

“Atewa’s amazing biodiversity as well as the environment solutions it supplies are invaluable, as well as the regional neighborhoods have actually been extremely singing in their desire to secure this area from damage,” claimed Daryl Bosu of ARocha Ghana “By attempting to remove temporary financial gain from the woodland, the federal government is really driving firms far from working withGhana It is time to purchase Atewa’s long-lasting security, not just for the advantage of Ghanaians, however to the advantage of all life on Earth, which depends upon our woodlands to assist battle the environment situation as well as stop pandemics.”

In 2016, A Rocha as well as companions released a record that revealed that securing Atewa Forest as a national forest as well as a barrier location around it– as opposed to extracting it for bauxite– really had the greatest financial worth for the nation over 25 years, with incredible advantages to neighborhoods both upstream as well as down.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) passed a resolution in November of 2020 requiring worldwide activity to conserve Atewa from bauxite mining, signing up with the global phone call to secure this irreplaceable woodland. In enhancement to giving tidy water to the neighborhoods around it, Atewa Forest is residence to one-of-a-kind Critically Endangered types such as the White- naped Mangabey ape, the Togo Slippery Frog, as well as the Afia Birago Puddle Frog, which was just found in 2017.

“Major multinationals paying attention to the voices of neighborhoods as well as openly tossing their financial weight behind the project to secure Atewa Forest is an extremely welcome action due to the fact that dealing with nature loss is everybody’s organization,” claimed Alice Ruhweza, WWFAfrica Region Director “Hopefully, much more firms will swiftly do the same, assisting to secure Atewa as well as sending out a clear message that components of our environment are as well invaluable to be ruined for short-term revenue.”

This news releases originates from a team of worldwide nature preservation organisations with the consolidated variety of greater than 15 million participants as well as advocates worldwide, including: A Rocha, Amphibian Survival Alliance, BirdLife International, Global Wildlife Conservation, Nature Offer, Rainforest Trust, RSPB, Synchronicity Earth, Trillion Trees as well as WWF.