Game and Wildlife warns communities against bushfire
Mr John Naada, Upper East Regional Director of the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission (FC) has advised communities within the Eastern Corridor enclave to help protect forest resources within their areas to reduce the menace of wildfires.
He noted that indiscriminate bush fires and killing of wildlife within the forest reserve has negative impact on food security and the sustenance of wildlife and property.
Mr Naada made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga and noted that the dry weather conditions make the areas susceptible to fires as result of activities of hunters and herdsmen.
He urged all communities to be vigilant and protect the environment around them from fires.
“Wildfires are dangerous and they can destroy food stored on farms and barns and bring with it widespread challenges to people, and so, we need to be careful about that”, he added.
He said while the established Community Resource Management(CREMAs) Committees in the Western Corridors constituted all stakeholders and hunters to ensure protection of the natural resource, his outfit is working relentlessly with their Burkinabe counterparts to also enforce the protection of their protected areas to avoid bushfires.
He said even though his outfit had carried out a number of sensitization programmes to educate communities on how to protect their properties, crops and livestock, he indicated that it is key for community members to report on killings of elephants within the reserve to the commission.
The Wildlife Director said a bio monitoring system on the Western Corridor by the Forestry Commission was to be established to check the movements of the types of animal species within the corridors and to facilitate counting of animals within the reserve for easy monitoring.
He stated that these animals migrate between Ghana within the western corridors and between the mole national part and the Nazinga game ranch in Burkina Faso.
He added that there are close to 70 elephants among others moving within the Eastern Corridor which heads between Kaboretande National Park and the Red Volta forest reserve areas down to the Gambaga Scarp.
Source: GNA