By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Gambibgo (U/E), June 9, GNA – Mr Stephen Yakubu, the Upper East Regional Minister, says planting trees and cutting trees at the same time are a huge waste of time, resources, and the public purse.
“In 2022, we planted 650,000 seedlings and out of those 350,000 seedlings survived and we are nurturing them but how many did we cut within that year? And I think that if we are just planting and at the same time we are cutting, then, there is something in mathematics called Cos90 job that we are doing,” he said.
He called on stakeholders including the traditional authorities and the Municipal and District Assemblies to institute stringent measures to nurture the trees planted and protect the existing ones and the environment from degradation.
The Regional Minister was speaking at Gambibgo Senior High School in the Bolgatanga East District to mark this year’s Green Ghana Day on the theme, “Our forest, our health.”
Out of the 10 million seedlings to be planted this year nationwide, the Upper East Region has been allocated 600,000 seedlings to plant with 500,000 seedlings to be planted in the forest reserves and 90,000 seedlings to be planted outside forest reserves.
The Regional Minister said human activities including tree felling for fuel wood and bush burning among other forms of degradation had depleted the forest reserves and vegetative cover in the Upper East Region.
This, he said, had resulted in climate change challenges including desertification, prolonged drought and erratic rainfall pattern which had in recent years adversely affected agriculture productivity and could pose food security challenges in future if the situation was not addressed.
“Let me use this opportunity to appeal to especially our revered traditional authorities to lead a crusade against indiscriminate bush burning which is a bane hindering the development of the regions in the North.
“I urge the Municipal and District Assemblies to reactivate their anti-bushfire squads to ensure that they bring to the barest minimum incidents of bushfires,” he appealed.
Mr Nyadia Sulemana Nelson, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Forestry Commission, explained that the Green Ghana initiative was one of the country’s forest and land restoration policies geared at restoring degraded forest reserves and landscapes and fighting climate change and needed collective effort to achieve maximum results.
He said an assessment that was made on the 650,000 trees planted in the Upper East Region in 2022 revealed survival rate of 85 per cent as of October 2022, but reduced to 55 per cent in February 2023, due to destruction by stray animals and bushfires.
Mr Emmanuel Yeboah, the Upper East Regional Manager of the Forestry Commission explained that the trees belonged to the individuals who planted them and underscored the need for intensified education for people to appreciate the need to plant and nurture trees for human survival.
The Chiana Pio, Pe Ditundini Adiali Ayagitam III, the President of Upper East Regional House of Chiefs, noted that it was necessary to inculcate in the youth the importance of tree planting to agriculture productivity in the region and urged other traditional authorities to support the Green Ghana initiative to succeed.
GNA