Natural resources extraction and ecological footprint in Ghana: assessing the effectiveness of military intervention and institutional regulation

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of gold, oil and timber extractions on the environment, second, to test the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, and finally, to compare the effect of institutional regulation and military intervention on natural resource extraction and its impact on the environment in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachThe Autoregressive Distributed Lag and Seemingly Unrelated Regression estimators were used.FindingsIt was revealed that gold, timber and oil production lead to an increase in the ecological footprint in Ghana. It was also revealed in the EKC hypothesis that gold and oil production increase ecological footprint, while timber production exhibited the EKC hypothesis. Also, institutional interventions on gold and oil extraction had a positive relationship with ecological footprint.Research limitations/implicationsOther natural resources, such as bauxite and diamond, can also be looked at. Spatial analysis can also be adopted to determine the effects of resource extractions at the district level.Practical implicationsThe paper highlights the need for an effective institutional intervention to mitigate environmental pollution from natural resource extraction.Originality/valueThe study disaggregated natural resources into gold, oil and timber. Also, the production levels of resources were used. The ecological footprint was used as a measurement for environmental pollution.