By Florence Afriyie Mensah
Kumasi, April 22, GNA – The Tropical Biology Association (TBA), together with the Institute of Nature and Environmental Conservation (INEC) Ghana, is running a practical restoration training programme on Ghana’s threatened tree species, for conservation practitioners and managers.
The 10-day training programme, funded by the Fondation Franklinia, aims to build the capacity of the participants to commit to conserve threatened tree species and restore their habitats.
About 20 participants who are undertaking mangrove restoration, natural regeneration, and other forms of forest reestablishments in the country, are taking part in the training programme.
It would cover topics such as Planning Impacts of Restoration Projects, Understanding the Links between Restoration and Ecology of Forests to achieve Long-term Conservation Outcomes, Different Restoration Approaches, and When to Apply them.
Again, participants would be exposed to Monitoring Impacts, as well as Communicating the Importance of Conserving Ghana’s threatened tree species.
Dr. Rosie Trevelyan, Director, TBA, at the opening of the training programme in Kumasi, emphasized the need to take forest life seriously.
She said forests contributed to providing stable climate, clean water, protecting plants living in them, and fighting atmospheric greenhouse effect among others, adding that the TBA believed that education was an important tool for conservation.
“We rely on and benefit from forests and if they are gone, we will suffer. We really have to conserve the forests that are left for the benefit of the people as well as our life, but because we have lost so many forests, we can do some action to restore them,” she observed.
Dr. Trevelyan was optimistic that as the conservationists received knowledge on restoration, they could help in Ghana’s quest in addressing challenges of conserving threatened tree species.
Mr. David Kwarteng, Director, INEC-Ghana, said over 10 percent of Ghana’s native tree species were threatened and that formulating effective strategies to conserve, and restore these species in their natural environments were both critical and urgent.
Explaining the genesis of the training, he said Fondation Franklinia funded a workshop that gave birth to the threatened tree conservation action plan.
One of the key gaps that was identified by the action plan was the lack of capacity to undertake restoration using threatened trees (trees that need urgent conservation attention and are at the verge of extinction).
He said in response to that, the training workshop was put together to train Ghanaian conservation practitioners and managers who were directly undertaking restoration on the field.
Mr. Kwarteng mentioned that participants as part of the programme would visit the Bobiri Forest, INEC’s restoration sites, and KNUST Botanical Gardens to learn the different restoration approaches and silvicultural practices being used.
GNA