Stone Quarrying and Livelihood Transformation in Peri-Urban Kumasi

Abstract

Stone quarrying is one of the key extractive economic activities in the Ashanti Region, supplying the bulk of stone of varying aggregates to the construction industry within the region and beyond. Yet the resource-rich communities have seen little socio-economic improvements. The paper draws on experiences from Nkukua Buoho and Ntiri Buoho in the Afigya Kwabre District of Ghana. It examines the peoples’ livelihood transformation where quarrying, both small and large-scale is a dominant economic activity. With a sample size of 110 respondents, data was collected by means of questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The paper observed that while quarrying is a major economic activity, its effects in socio-economic and environmental terms are unsatisfactory. It is the view of this paper that effective collaboration involving all the stakeholders would make the industry socio-economically beneficial to the communities and environmentally sustainable.

Keywords: Stone Quarrying, Livelihood transformation, Sustainability, Peri-urban, Buoho