Assin Foso (C/R), March 1, GNA- The Forestry Commission (FS) has urged the public to be circumspect and desist from indiscriminate cutting down of trees since that will negate the essence of the tree planting exercise under the Green Ghana Project.
Mr Emmanuel Donkor Agyapong, the Assin Fosu District Forest Manager, made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Assin Fosu.
According to him the vision of the Commission was to leave future generations and the communities with riches, better and more valuable forests and wildlife endowments.
It was in this direction that the Commission in collaboration with the Assin Fosu Municipal Assembly planted more than 171,568 seedlings compared to a target of 100,000 under the Green Ghana Project last year.
The partnership formed part of the intervention in ensuring that the country is kept green for posterity.
To sustain the Green Ghana Project, he said, more education would be done to arouse the interest and passion of the youth in greening the environment to help achieve the rationale of the Green Ghana Project.
More than 350.58 kilometres of forest reserves fall within the jurisdiction of the Forestry Commission in Assin Fosu and its surrounding communities.
Mr Agyapong admonished the youth to be responsive and sensitive to the calls for conserving the environment as part of their civic responsibility.
”The interest of the public in sustaining the tree planting exercise as part of Greening Ghana is paramount, else all the time, funds, other resources and trees planted will be a wasted effort which will leave us poorer,” he noted.
Pledging his support for what he described as a laudable project, the District Forest Manager assured all that the Commission was ready to plant more seedlings by June this year.
This, he said, was in line with the Government’s commitment to achieving international agreements, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Furthermore, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources in its assessment indicated that 99 per cent of trees grown in some degraded forest zones were yielding dividends.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during the Climate Change Conference in 2021 at Glasgow, Scotland, informed the gathering that Ghana would plant 20 million trees in 2022.
In line with the initiative, the President tasked the Ministry of Finance to allocate funds to support the planting of trees to restore degraded areas and preserve the environment.
GNA