By Jesse Ampah Owusu, GNA
Accra, June 07, GNA – Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND), a non-governmental organisation in climate and environmental sustainability, and Prudential Life Insurance Ghana have planted 2,000 mangrove seedlings at Ada Foah Obane Ramsar site in the Ada East District.
The initiative is to increase mangrove vegetation at the site to sustain biodiversity and protect the area against flooding and sea-level rise.
The exercise is in commemoration of this year’s national Green Ghana Day event.
Mr Chibeze Ezekiel, Executive Coordinator of SYND Ghana, said:
“This Green Ghana Day, we decided to do something concrete and feasible that we can always track its progress. That is why we have involved the entire community together with our partners to plant the 2,000 mangrove seedlings.”
Mr Ezekiel said they chose to plant mangrove seedlings because it would be beneficial to the community by providing alternative livelihoods to the residents of the communities, especially those who engaged in fish farming.
He said the planting was a pilot project and that it would be upscaled nationwide.
Mr Ezekiel said SYND had been engaging in other community climate and environmental support-projects to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.
Mr Emmanuel Hammond, Head of Sustainability, Prudential Life Insurance Ghana, said they had a five-year plan for the planting and sustaining of mangroves in the area to improve the community’s resilience to environmental challenges.
“The mangrove in this community is eroding. It is for this reason that we decided to support the Strategic Youth Network for Development and the Forestry Commission to restore the mangroves which are being depleted,” he said.
He said it formed part of their purpose to be “partners of every life and protectors of every future”.
Mr Hammond said they had so far supported with 17,000 seedlings since the commencement of the Green Ghana project and was focused on areas where much attention was not given.
Mr Eric Tetteh Addo Wusah, Youth Committee Secretary at Obane, said they would be monitoring the plants to ensure their survival.
He called on other organisations and philanthropists to support the community to dredge parts of the wetlands, which served as a water channel to the Volta Lake.
According to the Forestry Commission, the current mangrove cover of Ghana is estimated at 72.4 km2 with over 18 million trees.
Recent studies indicate that there is a significant decline of the country’s mangrove forests due to factors such as urbanisation, overexploitation, pollution, wildfires, and climate change.
GNA