The 2023 edition of the Green Ghana Initiative is targeting to plant some 10 million tree seedlings as part of the government’s aggressive afforestation and reforestation programme.
Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources Mr. Benito Owusu-Bio who disclosed this in a statement in Parliament indicated the event, which is scheduled for June, will be launched by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo next month.
The statement commemorated the International Day of Forests, which celebrates forests across the world and also creates awareness of the role that forests and trees play in socio-economic and environmental development.
The United Nations General Assembly on November 28, 2012, declared March 21 as the International Day of Forest and to be celebrated annually.
The UN allows countries to select suitable periods in the year to celebrate it so as to make the maximum impact on a country’s situation.
The theme for this year’s International Day of the Forests is “Forests and Health” and is intended to highlight the vital contribution of forests in supporting human health and wellbeing.
Ghana, over the years, has celebrated the occasion in June when there is good rain to plant trees across all the ecological zones.
The Minister indicated that forests play a crucial role in the fight against climate change and its adverse health impacts and support the survival and sustainability of the planet hence the need to protect and preserve them.
“We are all aware forests play a crucial role in the fight against climate change and its adverse health impacts and support our survival and the sustainability of our planet.
“Forests are, therefore, more or less the lungs of the earth and they give so much to our health. They provide the water we use daily from catchment areas, clean the air, capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, provide food security and nutrition, sustain reviews, provide employment and generate income, provide life-saving medicinal plants, and improve our well-being and reduce the risk of infectious and non-communicable disease.”
“Forests and trees are therefore to be loved, nurtured, and protected and every one of us must contribute to that”, the Deputy Minister stated.
Mr. Owusu-Bio however lamented that despite all these vital benefits derived from the forests, human activities have resulted in the destruction of the world’s forests over the years.
He stated the major direct causes of deforestation and forest degradation in Ghana include agricultural policy particularly cocoa and other cash crops production, illegal logging and illegal mining and unsustainable harvesting of firewood for charcoal production, uncontrolled bushfires, and infrastructural development pressure.
According to him, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target 15.2 enjoins countries to halt deforestation and restore degraded forests, and sustainably increase forestation and reforestation globally.
This, he said, is why President Akufo-Addo and the government have embarked on a series of interventions including the Green Ghana Day to reduce the threat of deforestation and forest degradation and contribute to global efforts to fight climate change and its adverse impacts on livelihood.
Contributing to the statement, MP for Awutu Senya West, Gizelle Tetteh-Agbotui urged the Ministry to do more by promoting, especially at the district level, the benefits of forests so they can realize their economic benefits.
She stressed that less is felt of the impact of climate change programmes and climate change benefits at the district level and called for more to be done on this day.
She indicated that forests are safe havens for research and appealed to research facilities and institutions to take that opportunity and visit forests in the Central Region as it provides a platform for learning new things.
Western Regional Minister and MP for Takoradi, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, in his contribution, indicated a major problem of land degradation beyond the illegal mining and bushfires, is the over-centralization of the permitting system.
According to him, there is a disconnect between operators in the sector and the communities where they work thereby making it difficult to control and manage them.
He advocated for new ways of decentralizing the permitting system in order to give communities more power over the mining firms and logging companies.
