Tropenbos Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with the vision to protect the forest from degradation has joined forces with the Forestry Commission in the Western North Region to educate the public on the need to protect forest reserves.
Preserving forest reserves, the two organizations noted, was not only about wildlife protection, but included the protection of the ozone layer from depletion.
Speaking at the celebration of this year’s International Day of Forest at Sefwi-Essam in the Debiso District, Mr Joseph Asante, Senior Project Officer at Tropenbos Ghana, mentioned that the depletion of the ozone layer among other things contributed to climate change, which was impacting lives and agriculture in most parts of Africa.
The global theme for this year’s celebration is “Forests and Sustainable Cities.”
The celebration saw school children in the area, marching with banners with the inscription “Forests and Sustainable Production and Consumption.”
The theme and the inscription on the banners sought to inculcate a sense of nationalism and discipline in children as well as farmers to grow in knowledge to safeguard the forest from illegal activities.
Mr Asante underscored the benefits, importance and resources Ghana derived from the forest and called on local forest communities to minimize actions that destroyed the forests.
He mentioned for instance, that gold, bauxite, timber and non-timber production as some of the benefits from forest reserves and expressed worry that forests were being lost at an unbearable rate due to illegal mining, illegal logging, wildfires, and encroachment of forest for Cocoa and food production.
He appealed to the government to reform tree tenure to enable farmers have ownership of nature trees and as well speed up the process for registration of planting trees to secure farmers interest in trees, since most farmers had demonstrated interest in improving trees cover in Ghana.
By Daniel Akwasi Nuako, GNA
