The State of a ‘Choked’ Lagoon: A Two-decade Overview of the Fosu Lagoon in Cape Coast, Ghana

Abstract

Environmental researchers all over the world are concerned with the rate at which lagoons are being negatively modified beyond critical threshold capacities to the detriment of future generations. The Fosu lagoon located in the Cape Coast Metropolis in the Central Region of Ghana is no exception. The lagoon was identified as polluted by the close of 1993. Various strategies to prevent, if not curtail, pollution and its effects on the lagoon, since then, have been suggested. Though the privatization of waste collection management in the metropolis was introduced during the 2000’s, this has not been enough to save the lagoon from the effects of pollution.  Using content analysis as research technique the study looked at various works of researchers in relation to the lagoon from 1993 to 2013. Secondary data was basically employed using texts, essays, book chapters, journal and non-journal articles, historical documents, theses and dissertations. Informed interviews and observations were also employed. The paper contends that various stakeholders have failed to heed to suggestions made by researchers. It attributes the inadequacy of efforts to save the lagoon to myopic leadership, bribery and corruption, lack of shared visionary leadership among political parties and traditional councils, discontinuity of local government leadership and general institutional failure. The study sought to provide recommendations to stake-holders ways by which the lagoon could be salvaged from complete demise. It identified the central government, lands commission, metropolitan assembly, traditional council, town and country planning, the Environmental Protection Agency and educational institutions as the major stake holders in this regard.

Keywords: aquatic; landfills; food chain; nitrates; solid waste.