EPA scales up effort to preserve biodiversity

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has upped its effort to stop the increasing degradation of the natural vegetation and water bodies.

Mr. Samuel Oteng, the acting Ashanti Regional Director, said this was being done through the combination of public education, monitoring and enforcement of the appropriate regulations to ensure compliance with safety standards.

It comes amid recent warning by a team of international scientists that the world’s biodiversity is dropping below safe levels for the support and wellbeing of human societies.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi, Mr. Oteng said it was important for everybody including the industries to become adequately informed about the consequences of their activities on the environment.

He underlined their determination to see to it that industries had in place appropriate mechanisms to identify, control and monitor any activity that tended to hurt the ecology.

Mining and other companies, which emitted harmful gases would have to make sure that these emissions did not affect people and animals living within and around their operation areas.

Mr. Oteng also spoke of the introduction of the green economy project by the EPA, under which waste products including sawdust, fecal matter and plastics were being recycled into energy and other beneficial uses.

He added that they were additionally encouraging people to go into tree planting and said that was critical to reduce the harmful gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon monoxide.

The situation where trees felled were not being replaced could create problems – affect not only the quality of “air we breathe” but also the water bodies and drive other creatures away from their natural habitat.

He appealed to everybody to desist from activities that destroyed the environment.

Source: GNA