American Actor Leonardo Leonardo DiCaprio Adds His Voice To The Ongoing Atewa Forest Mining Project (+Screenshot)

Award-winning American actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, has added his voice for the protection of the Atewa Forest.

As a staunch environmentalist, DiCaprio believes that mining in the Forest would put the millions of people and hundreds of wildlife species who depend on it at risk of extinction.

Leonardo DiCaprio took to his Twitter page to write;

“Ghana’s #Atewa Forest Reserve provides drinking water to 5 million+ people & harbors 100+ wildlife species at risk of extinction. We must prioritize the protection of these irreplaceable places for a healthy planet,” .

It is however not surprising that “Titanic” actor would take a keen interest in the developments with the Atewa Forest, which has been a raging issue since the deal with China was first announced.

According to some reports, Ghana received the first instalment of the $2 billion deal this week which was initially agreed upon in 2018 for the country’s bauxite deposits to be leveraged in exchange for the funds.

Ghana’s government has faced significant backlash over the proposal.

With the commercial mining of the bauxite set to commence next year, there has been rising agitation from within the country and externally as well, especially from environmental and wildlife conservation groups over the fate of the Atewa Forest, where about 165 million tonnes of bauxite is located.

It can be recalled that somewhere in June this year,  a group of mainly environmental activists marched through the streets of the Ghanaian capital, Accra, eventually presenting a petition to Parliament asking that the deal to mine in the forest be called off.

While the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources at the time, Kweku Asomah Cheremeh promised to “look at the issues they have raised in their petition”, the government still made moves towards implementing the deal as a private firm had been contracted to undertake the confirmatory drilling in the forest.

Several other bodies including A ROCHA Ghana have all expressed their displeasure against the  Sinohydro deal.

Checkout a screenshot of his post on Twitter

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