By Florence Afriyie Mensah
Akyawkrom (Ash), July 17, GNA – The Forestry Commission Training Center (FCTC) has officially organized a ceremony to outdoor a certificate course in Natural Resources Management and ushered in the first batch of students for the programme.
The 18-month trimester programme has been designed with practical hands-on knowledge with skills in forest protection, climate change and emerging forest practices and its regulations, and the development and management of forest resources.
Mr. Akwasi Konadu, a Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources speaking at the inauguration and matriculation ceremony of the programme at Akyawkrom in the Ashanti Region, recognized the importance of forest in national development and the significance of forests in addressing climate change, biodiversity conservation, energy security and sustainable livelihoods.
He observed that, the government was committed to promoting sustainable forest management and re-afforestation efforts as seen in the Green Ghana Project and other initiatives and interventions being pursued by the Ministry in collaboration with other stakeholders.
The Deputy Minister however, pointed out that, the issue of deforestation and forest degradation continued to be a major threat to forest resources as human induced factors such as unregulated logging, illegal mining, wildfires, bad agricultural practices, land-use changes among others, persisted.
The human resources to manage these forests, according to Mr Konadu, were inadequate and continued to dwindle, adding that, it was imperative for the Forestry Commission and its stakeholders to have produced this strategy of introducing this technical level training programme.
Mr. Konadu used the occasion to urge the students to be innovative and bring to bear their newly acquired skills to the forestry sector to develop new products for lesser known species, reduce wastage in the extraction of resources from the forest and help curb of illegal logging and mining, which had hugely degraded the forest over the years.
Mr John Allotey, Chief Executive, Forestry Commission, said per the Commission’s mandate to regulate the utilization of wildlife resources and ensure the conservation and management of the resources and the coordination of related policies, it needed a well-trained force.
He indicated that the problem had been that when the middle-level staff of FC retired, it became difficult to find people to replace them as there were no institutions to train people for the position of range supervisors and wildlife rangers.
The FC technical committee in a bid decided to create a workforce assessment to help find solutions to fill these gaps by recommending the creation of a certificate course in natural resources management.
Mr Allotey mentioned that the FCTC and the University of Energy and Natural Resources developed this course.
Dr. Andy Osei Okrah, Director for FCTC, explained that the new course had been designed to give practical knowledge and competencies to students to increase their employability.
The first batch consists of 67 students, made up of 53 males and 14 females.
GNA