The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Institute of Industrial Research (CSIR-IIR), has organised a sensitisation programme on mangrove plantation, for residents of Kodzi in the Anloga District of the Volta region.
This was to engage and educate the community on the importance and the uses of mangroves.
Dr Trinity Ama Tagbor, the Principal Research Scientist and the leader of the group, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said that mangroves were important ecosystems because of their ecological and socio-economic functions and needed to be restored within lagoon communities.
“Mangroves sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide thereby mitigating climate change at the local, national and international level and our project is to help educate the communities to plant and restore them here in Kodzi community,” she said.
Dr Tagbor further explained that in Ghana, mangroves had been significantly exploited for fuel and charcoal production, resulting in indoor air pollution with its negative health impact, and causing environmental hazard leading to the loss of livelihood in the communities involved.
She outlined some importance of mangrove which included shoreline protection, habitat for marine life, nurseries for fish, carbon sequestration, climate change resilience as well as improve water quality and maintaining biodiversity by providing a habitat for a wide range of plant and animal species.
“Sustainable renewable energy sources are now being explored to help curb carbon emission and the negative impact of climate, and these sources include improved feedstock like biomass pellets and briquettes from agro-waste.”
Dr Tagbor said, “Briquettes are a sustainable alternative fuel source for the conservation and restoration of mangrove in the Kodzi community in the Anloga District of the Volta region, and briquettes are mostly available commercially in Ghana and are sometimes exported while their uses locally are not common.”
Dr Latifatu Adjah, the Research Scientist and head of CSIR-IIR, in her presentation during engagement, said the Kodzi community was surrounded by a lagoon with floodplains and mangrove swamps, while the lagoon conserved mangroves, crabs, shrimps, and raffia plants and served as sources of livelihood for the predominantly fishing communities.
She said exploitation of mangrove for firewood and charcoal for food processing has denied the community of its source of livelihood-fishing breading areas for aquatic animals and have been degraded and destroyed by human activities which posed environmental threat to as result of deforestation and global warming.
Regent Togbi Zonyra of Kodzi and Mr George Amenyo Dzakpasu, the Assembly Member of the area, welcomed the initiative and urged the community members to embrace the project which would bring more employment, improve quality of life and protect the ecosystem.
They urged residents to help conserve the environment and desist from other practices which include bushfire, bad fishing methods, overgrazing by animals, among others which were not environmentally friendly.
Meanwhile, a community management committee had been inaugurated to foster and spearhead the mangrove planting and its maintenance to improved livelihood.
The Ghana News Agency learnt that CSIR-IIR would provide seedlings for the growing of a white mangrove plantation within Kodzi community, and the initiative was being sponsored by UNESCO through the Elsevier Foundation.
By Evans Worlanyo Ameamu, GNA
