By Philip Tengzu
Lawra, (UW/R), June 27, GNA – The Ghana Red Cross Society (GRCS) has planted 30,000 trees in the Upper West Region as part of efforts to contribute to the government’s disaster risk reduction through afforestation.
The trees were planted in 15 communities in three districts and municipalities in the region involving 15 schools and mother groups in those communities within two years (2022 to 2023) with funding support from the Italian Red Cross.
It was under the International Federation of Red Cross’s (IFRC) Pan African Tree Planting and Care Initiative to plant and nurture five billion trees in 10 years (2021-2030) in Africa with an annual target to plant 500 million trees.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Lawra after the planting of 1,000 multipurpose trees – cashew, cassia, tick and eucalyptus, Mr Solomon Gayoni, the Acting Secretary General of the GRCS, said human activities such as commercial charcoal burning had damaged the environment.
“We have lost a lot of trees to other economic ventures like charcoal burning and the consequences are the harsh conditions we are facing now, there is a lot of heat, the rains are not coming as expected and these are the results of human actions on the environment”, he explained.
Mr Gayoni, therefore, encouraged the community members to take tree planting and protection seriously and stop the wanton destruction of trees as they formed an integral part of human existence.
He advised the Yikpee M/A Junior High School students, who participated in the exercise, to take good care of the trees they planted for them to grow to benefit the community.
Mr Jonathan Hope, the Disaster Manager of GRCS, explained that plans had been put in place to ensure the trees planted survived as environmental and human factors such as drought, bushfires and animal grazing affected the survival rate of the trees planted in the previous year.
“This year we are planting another 1000 (trees) in the same communities and, measures have been put in place,’ we have taken the community through some education with the technocrats, the Forestry Commission”, he said.
Mr Hope said they involved the school children in the exercise to inculcate in them the spirit of tree planting and proper environmental practices.
He added that their involvement would also enable them to take good care of the trees that they had planted.
Mr Hope explained that the intervention was to contribute to addressing the drivers of deforestation by engaging communities in finding alternative livelihoods, and protecting, managing and restoring the forest and degraded land.
He said: “Ghana has one of the highest deforestation rates in Africa and the world, at 2 per cent per annum”, and added that the project was to support the GRCS in the region to make commitments towards planting and caring for trees in line with the governments Green Ghana agenda.
Mr Jeremiah Kpetaa, a volunteer with the GRCS in Lawra, said he would work with the students and the community members to ensure the trees planted survived.
The leadership of the school and the students expressed commitment to caring for and nurturing the trees to grow since it would be to their benefit.
GNA