Chainsaw operators destroying the environment

Jacobu (Ash), Oct 31, GNA - The activities of illegal chainsaw operators are destroying the environment in most communities in the new Amansie Central District.

Mr Kwame Asamoah-Boateng, the District Chief Executive who expressed this concern in his address to the general meeting of the district assembly at Jacobu, said "Illegal chainsaw operations are very rampant in our district. Apart from the destruction it is causing to our environment, it is having a heavy toll on our internally generated revenue".

He called for collective effort towards the checking of these operators whom he described as "nation wreckers who are causing havoc both environmentally and in terms of depriving us of our revenue". The DCE, speaking to the Ghana News Agency later, said the assembly was making frantic move to construct security barriers at strategic areas to help clamp down the illegal activities of the chainsaw operators.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng named Numereso, Kankanfraso Junction, Tweapease, Mile Nine, Fenaso No 3, Fiankoma and Obeneobene as some of the communities where the barriers would be sited. He said as a new district where most of the people depended on agriculture for their livelihood, it was important for the assembly to check illegal actions that destroy the land.

The DCE said to encourage cocoa farming in the area, the assembly had initiated an arrangement to offer opportunity to cocoa farmers to pay back fertilizers supplied to them under the Cocoa Disease and Pest Control (CODAPEC) programme within a period of three years. Mr Asamoah-Boateng said as a result of the arrangement, more cocoa farmers had gone in for the fertilizers.