Chinese Mining in West Africa Faces Environmental, Social Concerns

In May 2025, the China Global South Initiative, a collaboration between the Keough School of Global Affairs and the Atlantic Council Global China Hub, convened a group of twenty-two African environmental experts at the Peduase Valley Resort in Ghana for a three-day workshop on China’s environmental impact in West Africa. This workshop, supported by the Ford Foundation, included representatives from eleven West African countries—Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo—and South Africa.

First and foremost, the authors would like to thank Caroline Costello, assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, for her essential contributions to the workshop in Ghana and this collection of issue briefs. Ashley Bennett, events strategy program director of the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, provided critical logistical support. Alexandra Towns at the Keough School and Cate Hansberry, Beverly Larson, and Jeff Fleischer at the Atlantic Council provided expert editorial support. Guidance from Notre Dame’s Pamoja Africa Initiative helped identify contributors, and the Kellogg Institute supported their participation. The staff of the Peduase Valley Resort are also recognized for their hospitality. Last, the Ford Foundation is thanked for making the workshop and policy briefs possible.

Bottom lines up front

Chinese individuals, corporations, and state actors are increasingly involved in both legal and illegal mineral mining operations across West Africa. The negative impacts of these operations on water resources, forests and biodiversity, livelihoods, health, and food security across West Africa have been profound. This brief proposes national and regional policy recommendations for addressing the detrimental social and environmental impacts of Chinese mining in West Africa.

Background

There is growing concern about the detrimental environmental effects of Chinese mining operations in West Africa. Chinese companies exploit policy gaps, weak institutions, and the lack of regulatory enforcement across mineral-rich West African countries. Their involvement in legal and illegal large-scale corporate mining, as well as the small-scale artisanal mining intended for locals, demands policy responses that strengthen governance and enforcement across the region.

The environmental impacts of Chinese mining activities are complex, evolving, and difficult to fully identify due to the blurred lines between formal and informal mining operations. While industrial-scale mining tends to be confined to specific areas and is somewhat better regulated, illegal small-scale mining operations are poorly monitored despite their environmental and social harms. Chinese actors’ deployment of heavy-duty machinery in small-scale mining has significantly damaged ecosystems, especially forests and watersheds. Ultimately, both large- and small-scale mining have become major sources of environmental degradation, enabled by noncompliance with mining regulations, weak regulatory enforcement, and a lack of accountability and prosecutions for legal violations in the mining sector.

The impacts of these activities are not only ecological but also social. The scale of Chinese mining operations with heavy machinery drive land dispossessions and displacement across the region. Chinese operators in illegal mining often convert farmland, forest, and rivers into mining sites—sometimes forcibly or through collusion with government, traditional leaders, and private landowners—eroding long-standing livelihoods rooted in agriculture and fishing. The loss of land for farming bananas, rice, potatoes, and other traditional crops undermines food security, fuels social tension, and stokes conflicts between local communities and Chinese miners.

Weak regulatory enforcement in the mining sector stems from both systemic and political failures. Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are underdeveloped, and existing legal frameworks fail to address the complex challenges posed by the involvement of Chinese nationals throughout the formal and informal mining sectors. Critically, there is a lack of political will to enforce existing laws—due in large part to the complicity of state and local authorities. High-level government officials, security personnel, and local leaders often benefit from illegal mining operations through bribery schemes, unlawful permits and licensing, and even ownership of mining equipment and operations. These activities undermine law enforcement, shielding both local and Chinese violators from prosecution. Compounding the problem is the widespread failure of Chinese mining companies to honor their corporate social responsibility (CSR) agreements. Although mining laws in many West African countries require community engagement and CSR implementation, Chinese company compliance is often absent or minimal, leading to public resentment and straining diplomatic relations between China and countries such as Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Nigeria.

Evidence

The environmental impacts of Chinese mining activities are broad and far reaching, encompassing land degradation, ecosystem destruction, landslides, pollution deforestation, biodiversity loss, desertification, and exacerbating climate change. Chinese miners’ consistent flouting of environmental standards and safety measures has severely damaged forest reserves, farmlands, and water resources. Chinese mining in West Africa is commonly tied to illegal small-scale artisanal operations carried out in collusion with local and transnational actors, including criminal gangs.

Deforestation and soil erosion are commonplace across West African mining sites, and pollution of marine and freshwater bodies occurs at multiple stages of mining exploration. Small-scale gold mining causes extensive land degradation and harms water quality. In Nigeria, Liberia, Mali, and Ghana, Chinese financing has enabled local miners to excavate deeper with bulldozers and use harmful chemicals more extensively. Local mining workers and artisanal miners are exposed to hazardous mercury, cyanide, arsenic, and fluoride, often due to the lack of proper protective gear. Wastewater from mining containing these and other toxic heavy metals pollutes soil, groundwater, and rivers in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Mali, where landslides at abandoned Chinese-owned artisanal mines have resulted in fatalities. In Nigeria, lead poisoning in mining sites in Zamfara State in 2010 resulted in about four hundred children falling ill or dying. Wastewater discharge onto farmlands from mining reduces crop yields and introduces toxins into the food chain, affecting human and animal health. Many mining communities have reported disproportionate cases of cancer, respiratory infections, waterborne diseases, reproductive disorders, skin disorders, asthma, spontaneous abortions, and birth defects.

In coastal communities where mining is widespread, dredging boats discharge oil, fuel, and chemicals, obstruct riverbeds, cause erosion, and deform watercourses. Chinese mining operations have also released ballast water containing invasive species and toxic waste into marine ecosystems. Harmful runoff in mining sites poisons fish and reduces the size and quality of local stocks. Meanwhile, loss of farmland worsens poverty and undermines food security. In Ghana, the majority of small-scale “galamsey” gold mining sites are run by Chinese nationals, with more than fifty thousand Chinese nationals entering the country between 2008 and 2013 to engage in illegal gold mining. In Nigeria, mining-related disruptions have intensified farmer-herder conflicts due to declining access to water and grazing land.

Chinese involvement in mining across West Africa is linked to organized crime and the proliferation of weapons. Transnational criminal networks linked to Chinese mining have destabilized mining regions and eroded trust in both local and national governance. Illegal mining has also become a funding source for armed groups and terrorists, such as Boko Haram and bandits in the Nigerian state of Zamfara. Illicit gold mining in the Central Sahel countries—Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger—has been linked to transnational organized crime and instability. The illicit trade in Sierra Leonean diamonds and Malian gold has been tied to criminal syndicates and terrorism.

While Chinese involvement in mining has supported some job creation, infrastructure development, and technology transfer in mining communities, these benefits are typically accompanied by poor working conditions, low wages, environmental hazards, and labor-rights violations. Even when communities negotiate infrastructure projects, the benefits rarely offset the environmental and social damage. Numerous cases of inadequate compensation, unpaid royalties, and poor infrastructure have fueled community tensions and intracommunity disputes.

Governance weaknesses exacerbate these challenges. Environmental and natural resource agencies across West Africa are underfunded, lack the independence needed to enforce regulations, and are plagued with corruption. Overlapping mandates and poor interagency communication hinder enforcement, while lax licensing systems allow illegal Chinese operations to flourish. Weak coordination between federal, provincial, and local authorities further enables illegal mining to thrive. Many countries also lack clear procedures governing the entire process from mineral exploration to mine decommissioning.

Even in countries that have environmental impact assessment (EIA) laws, implementation is politicized and inconsistent and rarely results in severe penalties for violators. Officials often exploit the EIA process for personal gain, circumventing pollution-mitigation and land-restoration requirements.

Policy Recommendations

Improve Oversight and Compliance

Establish a digital reporting system to empower reform-minded actors. Update and enforce visa regulations for Chinese nationals and strengthen immigration and border controls. Clarify and improve mining license regimes and land tenure laws. Create a regional mining compliance database to monitor implementation of EIA and CSR and identify bad actors. Establish mining escrow accounts.

Raising Public Awareness

Strengthen public education. Train and protect journalists.

Empower Communities

Form community monitoring committees. Register local miners and support cooperatives.

International Engagement

Engage the Chinese government. Engagement among West African governments.

About the Authors

Richard Asante is an Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, Development and African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon. Joseph Asunka is the CEO at Afrobarometer. Abosede Omowumi Babatunde is a professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. Joshua Eisenman is a professor of politics at the Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame. Francis Egu Lansana is a development enthusiast. Sanusha Naidu is a senior research associate with the Institute for Global Dialogue. Ogbonnaya Igwe is the chairperson of the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Research Group. Youmanli Ouoba is a professor of economics at the University of Thomas SANKARA. Boukary Sangaré is a Malian anthropologist and independent consultant.

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