By Philip Tengzu
Nanchalla, (UW/R), April 22, GNA – Mrs Dorcas Owusuaa Agyei, the National Coordinator of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has encouraged beneficiary communities of the Land of Opportunity Global Mechanism (LOGMe) project to usurp ownership of the project interventions.
She said embracing, owning and managing the interventions would enable them derive the maximum benefits of the project for the transformation of their socio-economic livelihoods.
Mrs Agyei was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Nanchalla, a predominately farming community in the Sissala East Municipality during a tour of the LOGMe project sites.
The project was dubbed: “Creating Lands of Opportunity: Transforming Livelihoods through Landscape Restoration in the Sahel” and is known as: “Land of Opportunity Global Mechanism (LOGMe).”
Funded by the Italian Ministry for Ecological Transitions, through the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), it is being implemented in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Niger to contribute towards meeting the land degradation neutrality targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The IUCN led its implementation in Ghana in partnership with A Rocha Ghana, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI), and in collaboration with the Water Resources Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture.
The project is being implemented in eight communities, six in the Upper East Region and two – the Sakalu, and Nanchalla communities in the Sissala East Municipality, Upper West Region.
Mrs Agyei commended the communities for the high level of commitment they had exhibited towards the project implementation, which had translated into the benefits the communities were deriving from it.
She mentioned specifically the Nanchalla community where the people were maximizing the project interventions, including the beekeeping and the shea processing machine to improve their livelihoods.
“The project has various thematic areas with the main focus of improving significantly towards landscape restoration whilst creating income generation opportunities for communities.
“Oftentimes, we talk about restoration with the focus on only trees standing without emphasising the livelihoods of these communities, this project actually merged the two.
We focused on regaining the ecological functionality of the land, including grasslands, agriculture production, trees, and then ensuring that best and sustainable agricultural practices are done to improve the soil fertility, which is a major challenge in this area,”Mrs Agyei explained.
As part of the renewable energy component of the project, eight solar-powered mechanised boreholes were constructed in all eight communities and the beneficiaries were taught how to produce grass briquette charcoal and energy-efficient cooking stoves.
Four of the beneficiary communities were provided with a five-acre fenced area to produce vegetables for sale and consumption to help enhance their income levels and improve their nutritional status.
Mrs Agyei indicated that demonstration plots were also established in the project communities and farmers outside those communities were brought to the fields to learn good agronomic practices to enhance their farming activities.
Dr. Joachim Ayiiwe Abungba, the Head of the Black Volta Basin, indicated that the high demand for fuel wood and charcoal in recent times had led to the destruction of the vegetation and put pressure on the water resources.
He said that informed the need to adopt an integrated watershed management approach to restore areas that had been destroyed and protect water resources for the communities.
He commended the communities for caring for the trees planted under the LOGMe project, saying, “As you can see, we have almost 99 per cent survival in terms of restoration. And this is in April. So, it tells us that the communities are doing very well.”
Dr. Abungba appealed to the communities along the watersheds to take keen interest in making sure that they also develop plants to restore some destroyed areas.
He assured them that the commission was ready and willing to support any degraded watershed that required restoration.
GNA