Ghana hosts Africa biosphere workshop
The decline of African’s ecosystem is one of the major underlying drivers of disaster risks and poverty on the continent, especially, resulting from climate change issues.
Dr Musheibu Mohammed Alfa, Deputy Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, said this on Tuesday, at the third General Assembly of the African Network of Biosphere reserves (AFRIMAB) being hosted in Ghana.
He said due to the kind of treatment being meted out to the environment, when disasters strike, Africa’s ailing environment would have no power to defend itself and would even intensify the risks in the communities.
“Therefore, protecting ecosystems, which involves rehabilitating our forest, cleaning our rivers, and stopping pollution, among other actions, need to be done as soon as today”, he told delegates attending the meeting.
The four-day meeting on the theme: “The Role of Ecosystem Services in Boosting Green Economies in Biosphere Reserves,” would afford the over 75 participants from 38 countries the platform to discuss issues that borders on ecosystem services, conservation and green economy in Africa.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is organising the meeting.
Dr Alfa said when efforts were made to restore the ecosystem; it would lead to a green economy, which would ensure food security and sustainability of the environment for generations unborn.
He noted that while the continent was blessed with rich biodiversity, it was also one of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots, with a large number of spices that were endangered or threatened by extinction.
He said the rate of extraction and consumption of the ecosystem was faster than the rate at which the earth could be replenished and therefore, the need to start addressing these imminent issues through existing local and regional networks like the AFRIMAB.
Professor Nana Jane Opoku-Agyeman, Minister of Education in an address read for her by Professor Mahama Duwiejua, Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education, said since people depend directly on their natural resources, there was the need to ensure sustainability uses of such resources amidst constraints of effect of increasing growth in population and global change, natural and human disasters.
She commended UNESCO for partnering the EPA to enlist Ghana’s Songor Ramsar Site, in the Greater Accra region, as a UNESCO Biosphere reserve as well as the Bia Biosphere reserve in the Western Region, through the assistance provided by the Korean Government.
She said the biosphere reserve concept was also being used to restore Lake Bosomtwe, the only natural lake in Ghana, to its former state with the assistance of the Government of Spain, adding that, it was good the Lake and its catchment areas would be designated as UNESCO Biosphere reserve.
Prof Opoku Agyeman challenged the Ghana National Man and Biosphere (MAB) Committee to work with its immediate neighbours on the possibility of a trans-boundary biosphere reserve “since we believe that with a common resource, we would see the need to peacefully coexist”.
Mr Daniel Amlalo, Executive Director of EPA said since its establishment in 1971, the UNESCO MAB programme had consistently promoted interdisciplinary approaches to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management based on research, education and wise use of natural resources.
He said the MAB programme had enabled various states to move away from the command and control methods of conservation, as well as promoted the coexistence of humankind and nature to ensure human well-being and environmental sustainability.
He said with the current on-going work on the restoration of Lake Bosomtwe, it would soon be enlisted the third biosphere reserve in Ghana in the near future.
Dr Paul Makenzi, Chairman of AFRIMAD said because Africa’s national boundaries, which were drawn during the colonial era were not natural boundaries either for people or for animals and ecosystems, there was the need for countries to cooperate to jointly manage ecosystems that straddle their borders and working closely with the local populations in all fronts.
He said climate change, which was the result of greedy economies and, technologies rarely found in Africa, had become another major challenge of Africa’s vulnerability and already claiming 40 to 70 deaths per million.
Dr Makenzi said the MAB’s Biosphere reserve concept was one conservation approach that could guarantee green economy in Africa, built on environmentally friendly and sustainable industry and expressing the hope that the meeting would focus on Africa’s ecosystems services in the contest of biosphere reserves and challenges in its management.
“The world has enough natural resources for our needs but not for our greed. Indeed, Africa has more than enough natural resources for its needs but not for the greed of the developed west”, Dr Makenzi cautioned.
Source: GNA