Our Green Streets Blog

Mohammed Bin Abubakar, explains nursery to writer, Glenn Meyers. Photo: Oteng Foster

As gardeners go, Mohammed Bin Abubakar holds a unique position. He has built a forest where once there were only rushed rocks and the unsightly remnants of an old gold mine.

He serves as the reclamation coordinator at Newmont Mining Corporation’s Brong Ahafo Gold Mine in Ghana which started production a few years ago. One Newmont employee, Gloria Dwummah-Adu, says Abubakar has made a beautiful forest out of this mining wasteland and that many should follow this model.

Fondly, she refers to this 75-acre site as “Bin’s garden.” Now birds sing and the shade from the rapidly growing forest is a welcome relief to all who enter these woods.

Abubakar’s reclamation work began some time ago when Australian-based Normandy Mining employed him. When Normandy was sold to Newmont in 2002, he began working for Newmont Ghana Gold, Ltd. This is a green, well-designed forest that invites exploration.

Newmont Ghana employee, Gloria Dwummah-Adu in the reclaimed forest. Photo: Oteng Foster

“Wow! This is awesome!” exclaims MS. Dwummah-Adu.

Abubakar discusses how he built the forest. “We were tasked to establish a plantation to convince the locals that surface mining by the company will not destroy their land. And before that we established this nursery that you see here.”

He and his team then applied the knowledge they acquired from his training to reclaim the wasteland. They started with a nursery, which is now being used for other mining reclamation projects. Abubakar says that when they established this nursery, they decided to bring back the original trees, which used to be on the land.

To build this forest, Newmont, led by Abubakar, approached the chief of the town, asking that his village provide an area where the reclamation team could demonstrate its capabilities of reclaiming land. “And fortunately, there was some land – about 75 acres – he gave it to us free of charge to demonstrate to the people that if our company says we are going to reclaim the land it will be true,” says Abubakar. “Lo and behold, we established this forest which you see here.”

Many a mining operation should take a look at how this former mining site has undergone reclamation.