Goaso

The capital that is not the biggest town

Start with a fact that tells you most of what you need to know. Goaso is the capital of the Ahafo Region — and Mim, fourteen kilometres up the road, is bigger. Mim is the industrial town, with the timber companies and the cashew processing. Goaso got the government offices.

Ahafo is the smallest of Ghana's sixteen regions by population, around 565,000 people across 5,193 square kilometres, and it was created in February 2019 after a referendum in which 99.68 per cent of those voting said yes. That number is worth sitting with. Whatever you think about how the new regions were created, the people here wanted their own administration, and they wanted it overwhelmingly.

Be honest about the town itself: Goaso is small, green, quiet and almost entirely administrative. There is no monument, no museum and no tourism industry. What is here is a region that produces an enormous amount of wealth and a set of questions about where that wealth goes — plus, at the edge of it, one bird that serious birdwatchers cross continents to see.

Ahafo — conquered land, given as a gift

The Ahafo towns share a founding story rooted in Asante expansion. After the conquest of this forest country in the eighteenth century, Asantehene Opoku Ware I is said to have distributed the newly taken lands among the war leaders who had helped take them — each chief keeping the ground he had fought over.

One of those leaders, Brefo Apau, received the lands around Mim, Goaso, Hwidiem, Achrensua, Kenyasi and Ayomso, and was given a stool as Akwaboahene — a title tradition explains as meaning, roughly, one who went to help the chiefs in war. His warriors are said to have built their forward outpost in a stand of palm trees, sheltering under the branches, and to have called the place Mem or Mim, the Twi word for palm. Mim became the first town, and the others were placed under it.

Treat that as tradition rather than documented history — it comes down through oral accounts and the details vary in the telling. But the shape of it matters: this region's towns exist because of an Asante military campaign, and the stools here still trace themselves to that distribution. The name Ahafo is commonly explained as deriving from hunting, the forest having been hunting country before it was settled, though you will hear more than one explanation locally.

The white-necked rockfowl — the one world-class draw

In forest near Akrodie, at a site known as Mim Buo at Mim Asumura, lives a colony of white-necked rockfowl, also called the yellow-headed picathartes. If that name means nothing to you, it will not sound like much. If you are a birdwatcher, this is the single most important sentence on this page.

Picathartes are among the most sought-after birds in Africa — strange, ancient-looking creatures with bare yellow heads, found only in a narrow band of West African forest, that build mud nests on rock overhangs and in cave mouths. Birders travel from Europe, North America and Asia specifically to see them. Ghana is one of the few countries where it can be done, and the sites are few.

This needs arranging in advance, and it needs doing properly. Viewing is typically an afternoon wait near the nest site for the birds to return at dusk, and it depends on the breeding season. Go through the community-based arrangement rather than turning up: the colony's survival depends on local people having a reason to protect it, and disturbance at the wrong moment can cause a nest to be abandoned. Contact a Ghanaian birding guide or the local conservation arrangement well before you travel.

Cocoa, cashew and the bread basket claim

Ahafo calls itself the bread basket of Ghana, and the soil justifies a fair amount of that confidence. This is heavy cocoa country, and it is one of the country's main cashew producing areas — Mim has cashew processing, including a locally made cashew spirit that is worth asking about.

Timber is the region's second largest employer, with several substantial mills concentrated around Mim. That is a double-edged fact and we would rather say so: this is forest belt, the forest reserves are the reason the timber industry exists, and the pressure on those reserves from logging, farming and mining is the central environmental question in the region. The picathartes colony is not thriving in spite of that context; it is surviving inside it.

Getting to Goaso

Where to stay

Modest guesthouses and small hotels serving government staff, mining contractors and traders. Clean, functional, cheap by southern Ghana standards, and nothing at all aimed at visitors. Mim and Hwidiem have alternatives, and the mining presence around Kenyasi means slightly better options exist there than the town size would suggest.

If you are here for the rockfowl, ask your birding contact where to base yourself. The viewing site's location, not the town's comfort, should decide it.

When to come

The Adekyem festival is celebrated in November by the people of Bechem, in the Tano South district, marking events from the town's founding. Dates and details shift — check locally before planning around it.

Ghana festival calendar→

Worth the detour nearby

• Mim — the region's largest town and its industrial centre, with the timber mills and cashew processing. More going on than the capital.
• Kenyasi and Ntotroso — the mining towns, and the place to understand what a large-scale gold operation does to the settlements around it, for better and worse.
• Bechem and Duayaw Nkwanta — the Tano South and Tano North district capitals, in the greener eastern half of the region.
• Sunyani — the Bono Region capital to the north, and a considerably larger town with more of everything.
• Techiman and the Bono East — Tanoboase, Boabeng-Fiema and Bono Manso are all reachable from here, and make a strong pairing with Ahafo.

Practical notes, no sugar-coating

• Arrange the rockfowl visit weeks ahead, through a birding guide or the community arrangement. This is not something to attempt on the day.
• Do not photograph mine sites or personnel without permission. Active industrial operations, and security take it seriously.
• Cash. ATMs work in Goaso and the larger towns. Nothing in the forest — draw before you head out.
• Roads. The main routes are reasonable; the forest tracks are not, and deteriorate fast in the rains. Ask locally rather than trusting a mapping app.
• Rain. Forest belt. Waterproofs from March to October, and shoes you do not mind ruining.
• Malaria. Year-round in this zone. Take precautions seriously.
• Time. Two nights if you are birding. One is enough if you are not — and we would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.