By Nana Osei Kyeretwie/Benjamin Akoto
Fiapre (B/R), Oct. 4, GNA – The University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) and Lancaster University, England, are collaborating to address climate change challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa through the development of a new proposal to secure research funding.
The research will centre on diverse topics related to Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry.
Dr Emmanuel K. Nyantakyi, the Head, Earth Observation, Research and Innovation Centre (EORIC) of UENR and the Project Lead, announced this at the opening of a two-day research networking workshop at Fiapre in the Sunyani West Municiplity of the Bono Region.
It was on the theme: “Understanding the Factors Driving Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry Impacts in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
The workshop, attended by 70 participants, including 10 from the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, marked a significant milestone in the ongoing endeavor to comprehensively examine the dynamics of land use, land use change and forestry impacts in the sub-region.
The 60 Ghanaian participants were drawn from the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, Forestry Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and UENR.
Others include traditional and opinion leaders from the carbon-tower hosted communities-Gambia Number One and Two in the Asunafo North Municipality of the Ahafo Region.
Sponsored by the Global Challenges Research Fund, Lancaster Environmental Centre of the Lancaster University, EORIC-UENR and the University Management, the workshop aimed to shed light on the consequential impacts of those changes on climate and the environment identified by the proposal.
Its primary objective was to foster an interdisciplinary research partnership to provide a holistic understanding of the transformations in land use and forestry across Sub-Saharan Africa.
The proposal, according to Dr Nyantakyi, sought to investigate recent changes in forest cover and project future scenarios using satellite and ground-based observation systems and advanced land surface models.
That, he said, would help to understand how African forests would be affected by changing climatic conditions using data from a flux tower in Ghana (GhanaFLUX) as a test case, and investigate interactions between people who lived near forests and the extent of their understanding of forest conservation issues.
Providing an overview of the project, Dr Nyantakyi emphasised the crucial role that changes in land use and forestry played in global climate change, saying Africa has witnessed significant land-use changes, including deforestation, overgrazing and the reclamation of degraded lands.
Tropical forests, with 18 per cent found in Africa, were important stores of carbon dioxide and thus had a major influence on the global climate.
Dr Nyantakyi cited at the last session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow, Scotland, that leaders from a number of African countries agreed to protect forests as part of global efforts to prevent climate change.
He, however, said despite those commitments, the African Continent continued to witness changes in land use and forest cover due to human activities such as logging and mining.
He expressed the fear that the situation might be compounded because of the projected Africa’s population growth of 2.5 billion by 2050, which was likely to exert further pressure on land resources as more land would be required to feed, house and sustain the growing population.
Later in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Professor Kirk T. Semple, Director, Lancaster Environment Centre, said the University had been working with some research organisations in West Africa for about six years now to achieve the set objectives and the UENR was one of those partners.
Hence, the workshop was to explore new research ideas and funding opportunities in the Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry and how that impacted on climate change.
“What the two universities intend to do is to build a partnership that is well-placed and can strongly bid for and win significant research funding,” he said.
GNA