Ghana’s Juaboso District is located at 6° 20’ north latitude and 2° 50’west longitude. The district capital is Juaboso, located 360 km northwest of Sekondi-Takoradi, the regional capital, and 225 km from Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital. The constituency encompasses a total surface area of 1,329 km2 and serves as an entry or exit point between La Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. The main economic activity of the district is agriculture, much of which focuses on cacao,production. In the past few years, Juaboso’s communities have witnessed the invasion of small-scale gold mining operators, and the impacts of these mining activities on the environment that constitute livelihoods, in general, have garnered the attention of individuals, community interest groups, nongovernmental agencies, stakeholders, and the media. This study investigates the impacts of small-scale gold mining in two Juaboso villages, focusing on how the mining affects local livelihoods, the environmental consequences of the mining, and how local informal political institutions mediate access to natural resources. To address these issues, the study employs quantitative analysis in the form of seventeen in-depth semi-structured interviews; a modified grounded theory approach was utilized to analyze data in the form of interview transcripts. The study finds that despite the economic gain received from the mining sector in Juaboso District, small-scale gold mining has a significant negative impact on the livelihoods of farmers in the study communities that depend on cacao as their main source of making a living. Mining activities are also found to have had considerable negative effects on the local ecosystem, further endangering agricultural livelihoods. Besides, the study demonstrates that local informal political institutions may not be well suited to manage legal issues arising from mining activities. Members of these communities need to be aware of the potential impacts of small-scale gold mining on local livelihoods and natural environments.