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After sustained pressure from environmentalists and journalists, the John Mahama government has finally revoked the contentious Legal Instrument (L.I.) 2462 that opened up Ghana’s ecologically sensitive areas, including forest reserves for mining.
This follows the maturing of the Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) Revocation Instrument, 2025. The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, laid the instrument in Parliament on October 31, 2025.
In accordance with Article 11(7) of the constitution, the regulation was revoked on December 10, 2025 after 21 Parliamentary sitting days.
Reacting to the revocation of the Legal Instrument, the Deputy National Director of A Rocha Ghana, Daryl Bosu, said:
“This is a crucial victory for Ghana’s forests. Yet even now, as we celebrate, forests continue to be destroyed by artisanal mining, illegal farming, and logging activities with no effective action in sight,” he said. “To secure this win, we must urgently halt illegal activities, grow back our forests, and in the long term, develop and implement a progressive national forest protection program, while upgrading the Forestry Commission to effectively deal with these new age threats.”
When the minister laid the Revocation Instrument in Parliament, he said the regulation had been amended due to intense public outcry. The amendment resulted in the creation of L.I. 2501, which came into force on June 2, 2025, he said.
But civil society advocates and concerned citizens opposed the amendment. They argued that the new regulation still left the country’s forest reserves vulnerable.
Mr Armah-Kofi Buah said the government gave in to the demands after consulting with experts and the groundswell against the regulation.
“We are showing Ghanaians that we are committed to protecting the environment, our forest, and our water bodies,” he said.
With The Fourth Estate revealing the faces behind the forest invasion, the National Democratic Congress, then in opposition, promised to revoke the law.
However, the Mahama government made a U-turn on the issue and rather amended part of the regulation, taking away the power of the president to waive the protection of protected forest reserves, including globally significant biodiversity areas.
The decision incensed environmental activists who accused the government of not living up to its word. This compelled the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to re-lay the law before parliament for revocation.
Background
In early 2023, a coalition of civil society organizations (CSOs), including A Rocha Ghana and Nature & Development Foundation (NDF), raised the alarm about how the L.I.
However, their concerns fell on deaf ears.
Their demands remained unheeded to until The Fourth Estate revealed in September 2024, how officials of the then ruling party, the New Patriotic Party, and government appointees of that regime, were granted concessions to mine and prospect in forest reserves.
The expose uncovered the identities of NPP officials and government appointees who were scrambling for mining licences in Ghana’s forest reserves. The owners of some of the companies that have obtained these licences included the mayor of Ghana’s second biggest city, Kumasi, Sam Pyne, and a Parliamentary Candidate for the NPP in Juaben, Francis Owusu-Akyaw.
The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, the District Chief Executive of Wassa East, Emmanuel Boakye, and the NPP’s Women’s Organizer in the Western Region, Angela Bint Ntaama, including a presidential staffer, Harriet Kyeremanteng, all had companies whose licences were waiting ministerial approval to mine in forest reserves.
The Fourth Estate’s investigations also revealed that since 2023 at least 10 companies have been granted mining leases to mine in 11 mining forest reserves. Four of the companies were to operate in globally significant biodiversity areas. As of August 13, 2024, our investigations also uncovered that at least 25 companies had filed 32 applications to mine and prospect in 24 forest reserves.
The investigative report produced a groundswell for the immediate revocation of the regulation. A month after publication, the Attorney General of the past government instructed the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, along with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to “suspend the enforcement of the Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) Regulations 2023 (LI 2462) with immediate effect”.
However, it took the incumbent government to actually revoke the law, reverting the regulation of Ghana’s forest reserves to an administrative framework for mining called the Environmental Guideline for Mining in Production Forest Reserves, which permits limited mining of not more than 2% of timber production reserves.
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