By Albert Futukpor
Tamale, Jan. 15, GNA-Stakeholders involved in protected areas’ management within the Mole Ecological Landscape, have converged at a forum to discuss issues of conservation concerns within the corridor (Mole Ecological Landscape).
Some lessons learnt from the implementation of the Savannah Integrated Biodiversity Conservation Initiative (SIBCI) project were shared with the participants, especially those who were not part of the implementation process.
This was to enable them to understand the dynamics involved in modern day conservation and how such lessons could be replicated in other protected areas to conserve biodiversity.
The two-day forum was organised by the Ghana Wildlife Society, an organisation, which implemented the SIBCI, a three-year project, which ended last year.
The SIBCI project, funded by the European Union, was to contribute towards a more sustainable, participatory and integrated management of the Mole National Park and peripheral landscapes.
The participants included representatives from parks and corridors such as the Mole National Park, Bui National Park, Western and Eastern Wildlife Corridors of the Mole Park and the Mole-Bui Wildlife Corridor.
There was a presentation on the overview of the SIBCI project as well as discussions on issues including emerging ones in protected areas management and opportunities, the state of the Mole Ecological Landscape, contribution of NGOs/CSOs to wildlife conservation in the Mole Ecological Landscape, how stakeholders collaborate to address emerging threats and take advantage of available opportunities?
Professor Erasmus Owusu, a Council Member, Ghana Wildlife Society, called for institutionalisation of the forum, which was dubbed: “Protected Areas Forum,” to enable stakeholders to share ideas for the conservation of such areas in the country.
He emphasised that “Based on the experiences that we got from this project, there is the need to institutionalise this forum on protected areas management where we bring all protected areas’ managers together and get people to commit to the process of conservation of protected areas in the country.”
He added that “Because, the issues are many and if we do not speak, and we are in our corners working as individual CSOs, our voices cannot be heard. The forum like this will bring out the issues and we pick the action points and implement them at the national level.”
Biodiversity (plants and animals) conservation is important in safeguarding the ecosystem, but human activities such as poaching and hunting especially by communities surrounding protected areas have become a threat to the effective management of those areas.
However, through the SIBCI project, communities surrounding the Mole National Park had benefited from livelihood activities such as training in bee keeping and shea nut processing and their value chains amongst other support activities, to earn a living instead of depending on the wildlife, he said.
Prof. Owusu called for positive action within the corridors saying, “Let us pool efforts and with support from government, I am sure that we will protect the landscape because the wildlife resources within the landscape especially the corridors are something that we need.”
Dr Richard Gyimah, the Director for Stakeholder and Ecotourism, Wildlife Division, Forestry Commission, noted that the benefits of the SIBCI project were enormous saying it had helped in the management of the Mole National Park through provision of resources.
He said the Park would work to sustain the gains making use of District Assemblies, to incorporate some of the activities into their Medium-Term Development Plans for sustainable financing of some of the activities.
Mr Mustapha Adam, the West Gonja Municipal Coordinating Director said the Assembly had incorporated some of the activities of the project into its MTDP and Action Plans to sustain the gains, for the benefit of the people and the Park.
He called for the enforcement of by-laws to help in the effective management of protected areas in the Assembly.
Tolodompewura Abdallah Ahmed, the Chief of Tolodompe in the West Gonja Municipality of the Savannah Region, said due to the project interventions, which had brought livelihood benefits to the people, surrounding communities now discouraged others from poaching in the Mole National Park.
GNA