Poverty & Profit Driving Illegal Gold Mining in Ghana

It is interesting with exploitation always there are people desperate for the money who will work for little in order to eat and then there are those in the companies who are getting a commodity cheaply and making huge profits. Gold is $1,391.25 US Dollar per ounce in Australia. Such is the dichotomy of greed and poverty. What was interesting about this story by the Guardian was the damage caused by small scale gold miners to the environment. They also are exposed to mercury as they use this substance to extract the gold. There would be no thought or care for their health.

The economic system is about profit making it is not about creating wellbeing in societies. It is typically created by mindsets that see self interest over the greater good. In fact I’d say they don’t even think of the greater good. We are all taught to maximise our profit/earnings and it is our business. We are not cultivating a global society where the suffering of another is my suffering, that the benefit of the other is my benefit, that we are one species occupying a planet and what you do to me returns to you. If you destroy the environment you destroy the very life supports under your feet, it matters not if it is in Africa, Australia, Papua New Guinea or wherever, the planet is linked as one holistic system, yet we still live as independent organisms serving ourselves at the expense of the bigger picture.

Perhaps education will turn this mindset around. Perhaps as consciousness raises and people wake up to the turmoil we have created through fear and greed that never fulfils us, perhaps then we will see that the power of love overcomes the love of power, then perhaps our world chooses peace.

All is one, all is linked, perhaps we can sift for the truth and when we do we will find the real gold, only the truth sets us free! Freedom is the fools gold everyone is seeking. Where we are foolish is that we do not work together for the betterment of all, when we do there will be plenty of fools gold for everyone.