Environmental governance and political contestation in contexts of illegal small-scale gold mining in Ghana

• The political settlement in Ghana produces environmental governance challenges. • Elite power struggles marginalize environmental concerns. • Contentious and illegal gold extraction sites link up to global market chains. • The accumulation of rents from galamsey prioritized over environmental protection. • The political settlement drives the continuation of galamsey. Ghana experiences significant environmental harm from illegal small-scale gold mining. Despite government attempts to halt operations, countless sites exist around the country – enjoying local legitimacy, operating with seeming political impunity, and playing increasing roles in both local and national political economies. This article focuses on the environmental governance challenges and the underlying political organisational drivers, analysed from the perspectives of political settlement theory and contentious politics. This shows environmental governance challenges arising from the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) occupying an inferior position in relation to more powerful and competing state entities and endeavouring to fulfil mandates in highly contentious local social and political fields. Accordingly, we argue that challenges to environmental regulation are based in efforts to establish ruling coalition stability amidst fierce political and institutional competition, and which results in an informalisation of resource governance and lack of structural constraints on powerful actors.