Artisanal small-scale mining and mercury pollution in Ghana: a critical examination of a messy minerals and gold mining policy

The use of mercury in artisanal small-scale gold mining has generated intense debate because of its deleterious effects on human health. A narrative policy analysis of artisanal gold mining debates in Ghana’s parliament was carried out in this study. The results show that civil society and policy makers use various rhetorical idioms particularly rhetoric of loss, entitlement, endangerment, unreason, and calamity to support claims-making in the artisanal mining debates. This reveals the co-mingling of politics and science in environmental policymaking.
http://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jenvss/v3y2013i4p381-390.html