Takorayiri (NER), July 13, GNA-About 13 hectares of degraded lands at Takorayiri, a farming community in the West Mamprusi Municipality of the North East Region has been restored to provide protection to water bodies in the area.
It also served as a buffer zone to the Kudani River, a tributary of the White Volta and a good habitat for wild reptiles.
This was made possible through the implementation of the Riparian plantation and natural regeneration initiative under the erstwhile Sustainable Land and Water Management Project (SLWMP) rolled out to reverse degraded forest and lands and improve agriculture productivity in the five regions of the North.
This was made known to the Ghana News Agency when Mr Asher Nkegbe, the Head of Technical Office of the project, paid a working visit to the area to inspect the impact of the intervention in the area.
The Project which was funded by Global Environmental Facility (GEF) through the World Bank begun implementation in 2010 and ended in 2020 has supported about 39,600 farmers in 247 communities in the project regions to adopt sustainable land and water management practices.
Mr Nkegbe said the initiative was making significant gains as it had reversed degraded lands and was improving agriculture production in the beneficiary areas.
Prior to the implementation of the intervention in the area in 2014, the Kudani River which flows into the White Volta and provides water for grazing livestock used to dry up especially during the dry season, he said.
Also, he said farmers used to cultivate crops close to the river without observing the buffer zone policy and degrading the area, creating soil erosion, and posing threat to the bank of the river.
The Buffer Zone Policy sets the procedures for managing and controlling human activities such as farming, mining, and inappropriate disposal of waste along water bodies’ banks and catchments, which affect water quality.
He said apart from natural regeneration and bamboo tree planting which was employed to restore the degraded lands and create fodder bank for animals, farmers in the area were introduced to agronomic practices such as stone bonding, crop rotation and intercropping to increase yields.
He said the project had also constructed shea nuts processing centre in the area which was supporting women groups to increase production and income levels.
He said the farmers, particularly the women had also been introduced to the Village Savings and Loans Association concept which was impacting positively on their livelihoods and increasing their income levels.
Mr Nkegbe noted that the Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small-Scale Mining Project (GLRSSMP), was building on lessons, experience, and successes of the SLWMP, with the aim to strengthen Ghana’s natural resource management, restore degraded forest and landscapes, formalise and regulate small-scale mining to increase benefits to communities in Northern Savannah and Cocoa Forest Zones.
Mr Tijani Siisu, an Agriculture Extension Agent for the area, noted that apart from the buffer zone helping the river to be able to store enough water throughout the year for agriculture purposes, women in the area did not have to travel long distances to process their shea nuts.
GNA