Open letter to Ghana's minister for lands and natural resources

Honourable Minister,
I shall go straight to the point: My family's 14-square mile upland evergreen rainforest land in the Akyem Juaso section, of the Atewa Range, in the Eastern Region, was acquired on a freehold basis, from the Gyasehene of Kwabeng, Nana Kwasi Banning, in 1921 - and it was added to, and consolidated, as one, with the purchase of yet more land, in 1926, with the concurrence of Nana Ofori-Atta 1.

A total of £1,000 was paid officially, and recorded, but an off-ledger payment of an extra £4,000 was made and distributed. So, in all, my late Grandpa, P. E. Thompson Esq., forked out the princely sum of £5,000. 99.6 acres of the said land lies inside the Atewa Forest Reserve, as it happens. It is referred to in Forestry Commission jargon, as an 'admitted farm', to which we have legal access, but have kept pristine for a future community carbon sequestration project.

The descendants of the Henrietta Akosua Aboagye branch of the P. E. Thompson family tree, are committed conservationists, who are key stakeholders in SYTO Ghana's planned conservation-through-ecotorism land restoration project, in the area, and want you to cancel all the issued gold prospecting licenses, and small scale gold concessions, in our 2.5-square mile portion, of the 5-square mile P. E. Thompson land lying between the Akusoo stream and the Cheboa stream, which is disected by the Bordwuser stream.

No official from any of the regulatory bodies consulted us (my sister Marian Alma Thompson and myself), when the prospecting licenses were issued, and the delineated small scale gold concessions of our land, were carved out.

With respect, Hon. Minister, we object to an economic activity, gold mining, that will ruin our biodeversity-rich upland evergreen rainforest land, which lies in land designated as a Globally Significant Biodiversity Area (GSBA), by Conservation International, and thus prevent us from turning it into a community-based ecotourism destination, to preserve for future generations. That is unjust.

Thanks.

Yours sincerely,
Kofi.