By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Paga (U/E), Sept 29, GNA – As part of the implementation of the European Union funded Landscapes and Environmental Agility across the Nation (LEAN) project, a seven member Landscapes Management Board (LMB) Executive Council has been elected at Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region.
Facilitated by World Vision Ghana, the Executive Council would lead the activities of the LMB in the district in the next two years and work with relevant stakeholders to preserve landscapes.
The elected members are Mr Robert Dampare, Chairman, Mr Solomon Tarati, Vice Chairman, Mr Sampson Tijamba, secretary, Mr Samuel Awia, Assistant secretary, Mr Patrick Yarah, organizer, Mr Frederick Wugaa Awovire, Financial Secretary and Madam Faustina Banakwoyem, Treasurer.
The EU LEAN Project seeks to directly contribute to the national efforts of conserving biodiversity, improving livelihoods of smallholder farmers, increasing climate change resilience, and reducing emissions from land use changes in the savannah, high forest, and transition zones of Ghana.
Mr Joseph Edwin Yelkabong, World Vision Ghana EU LEAN Project Manager, explained that the establishment of the LMB as a landscape governance model, with the participation of key stakeholders, was to adopt community based natural resource governance structure in the savannah landscape.
“The approach is designed to serve as the main decision-making body in managing, monitoring, and controlling forest access in production areas situated within the district as well as surrounding forest reserves,” he said.
“The LMB platform works with stakeholders to coordinate, align, and reduce conflicts among their respective activities, policies, and investments, all in the name of protecting landscapes and the remaining forests in the savannah.”
He said the smallholders who were members of the LMB were closest to the natural resources and crucial to fighting deforestation.
He, therefore, urged the elected executive council members to complement the activities and efforts of regulatory bodies to implement landscapes projects that would build community resilience against adverse effects of climate change.
Divisional Officer, Boniface Awiah, the Kassena-Nankana District Fire Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service, commended World Vision Ghana and its partners and said through the EU LEAN project and others, close to 1,000 fire volunteers had been trained in its operational areas and it had helped to reduce incidence of fire outbreaks in those areas.
He said the election of the executive council would complement the efforts of the Fire Service in intensifying education on the effects of bush burning to their food crops and the threat of climate change, which had become eminent to farmers.
Mr Richard Kyeremeh, the Assistant District Manager of the Navrongo Division of the Forestry Commission, noted that the Commission planted about 350 hectares in its operational areas and 50 hectares in the Kassena-Nankana West District alone.
He urged the executive council members to support efforts at educating farmers to help fight bushfires and animal grazing.
The Chairman Elect of the LMB Executive Council, assured that the executive council would work with relevant stakeholders to protect the environment.
He also appealed to the regulatory bodies such as the traditional authorities, the district assembly, the Ghana National Fire Service and the Forestry Commission among others to enforce laws on forest destruction.
GNA