Forestry Commission pleads for resources; huge forests left to few guards

The Forestry Commission (FC) of Ghana says its needs more capacity and other resources from the Government and other sources to save the nation’s forests and protect its natural water resources.

Mr Samuel Afari Dartey, the Chief Executive Officer of the Commission, expressed unhappiness with the inadequate human personnel and other logistics as the Commission makes frantic efforts to protect the forests.

According to Mr Dartey, the size of a forest reserve which could be as large as 120 square miles, 200 square miles or even 5,000 square miles could have only two guards or forest men in such a large area.

“We need capacity and other resources to protect our forests,” Mr Dartey said.

He explained during the celebration of the International Day of Forests by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), that it was necessary to protect the forest cover, which was important to rivers such as the Birim, Densu and Ayensu Rivers.

The theme for this year’s celebration was, “Forests and Water” and was meant to raise awareness on the multiple links between forests and water sources.

According to the Forestry Commission CEO, most of the 293 forest reserves covering an estimated area of 2.4 hectares and 23 wildlife protection areas (covering about 1.34 million hectares) in Ghana serve as important water sheds and in some cases sources of headwaters of important rivers.

However, acute water shortage that hit Nsawam in the Eastern Region and most parts of the country in recent times has been linked to the drying up of rivers and other water courses, attributed to loss of forest cover due to illegal logging, illegal small scale mining (galamsey), hunting and bush-burning  among others.

Areas which hitherto have been declared as riparian buffer zones where logging, road construction and any other development are prohibited to ensure that water bodies are not exposed to the vagaries of the weather are no longer in existence  because all the trees have been felled with careless abandon.

“Ghana is losing about 15 million cubic metres of forest reserves per annum due to legal and illegal logging, bush burning, illegal mining and settlements,” Mr Dartey said.

As a result, people both young and old, children and women in particular, suffer the consequences of travelling long distances in search of water

“One of the solutions to this problem is to plant more trees along water bodies to prevent them from drying up,” Mr Dartey advised, adding that it is a collective responsibility of every Ghanaian to reverse the trend.

He also called for the active participation of the security agencies and the judiciary, by meting stiffer punishments to forest offences.

He said the UN allows member states to adapt the celebration of the International Day of Forests as well as the date, to suit their peculiar circumstances.

Consequently , the FC  together with the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and its stakeholders will celebrate the International Day of Forests with a week-long programme dubbed ‘Forestry Week and Greening Ghana’ to mark the Day from May 25 to 30, 2016.

“The Forestry Commission decided to choose the month of May for the celebration of the Day because of favourable climatic conditions during that time of the year for tree planting and other silvicultural operations,” Mr Dartey explained.

Some of the activities earmarked for the week-long celebration are tree planting exercises, education day on forests and wildlife, quiz on the relationship between forests and fresh water supply among selected second cycle institutions in the Greater Accra Region and a grand durbar and Greening Ghana in the Ashanti Region.

Mr Dartey mentioned the adoption and implementation of a new Forest and Wildlife Policy-2012, the national forest plantation programme, the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) and Forest Investment Programme (FIP) as some initiatives that have already been launched to reverse the trend of deforestation and land degradation.

Nii Osah Mills, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, said that the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 6 and 15, specifically devoted to address the issues on water and forest, show a significant commitment by government to face the challenge of climate change and related issues.

He called on Ghanaians to use the celebration of the Day to collectively create awareness on the need to keep our forests, the need to plant trees, preserve our water bodies and be law-abiding.

Mr Bukar Tijani, the FAO Regional Representative for Africa, on behalf of the FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva, said promoting forest restoration and avoiding forest loss will require a significantly increased level of funding and innovative financing, including from private funds and traditional investors, in the coming years.

“The challenges are many, but the goal is very clear: to ensure the sustainable management of forest and water resources on the planet,” Mr da Silva said.

In Ghana, Mr Tijani said Africa and Ghana can meet their obligation to the international community on climate change mitigation if forests are successfully and sustainably managed, restored and developed.

This year International Day of Forests global celebration was used to launch a new programme aimed to enhance the critical role of forests in improving water quality and water supplies, on the occasion of the UN’s International Day of Forests.

The programme, focused specifically on the close relationship between forests and water, will start off by looking at ways to improve water security in eight West African countries: Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Sierra-Leone.

The organization will work with local communities to raise their awareness of the interactions between forests and water and help them to integrate forest management in their agricultural practices to improve water supplies.

Source: GNA