Chiefs, other leaders trained on how to end unsustainable environmental practices in West Gonja

World Vision Ghana has trained chiefs, faith leaders, and some assembly members in the West Gonja Municipal in the Savannah region to end unsustainable environmental practices that harm the environment.

The training was also intended to equip these stakeholders with the requisite knowledge and skills in environmental management. This was to prepare them adequately to care for and protect forest and land resources and prevent future environmental calamities in the area.

The training was also to introduce proven landscape restoration techniques known as Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) principles to communities and farmers through the chiefs, assembly members, and faith leaders in the West Gonja traditional area.

World Vision Ghana is implementing the European Union funded Landscapes and Environmental Agility across the Nation (LEAN) project in the West Gonja Municipal and Kessana Nankana West Districts to reverse land degradation while contributing to national efforts to conserve biodiversity, improve livelihoods and build farmers resilience.

Addressing participants during the training, the LEAN project manager, Joseph Edwin Yelkabong, said chiefs, faith leaders, and assembly members wield authority and can influence the adoption of best environmental practices.

Therefore the need to provide them with requisite knowledge and skills on environmental management is crucial.

He said, prolonged drought, cattle grazing, bushfires, and persistent extraction of forest resources such as rosewood and tree felling for charcoal production and wood fuel have reduced vegetation cover and resulted in a loss of biodiversity in the West Gonja area.

This affected soil fertility, rainfall patterns, and increased temperatures, and gradually turned the once forested region into a degraded landscape.

He therefore urged the participants to lead in efforts aimed to reverse this trend by controlling unsustainable environmental practices such as indiscriminate tree felling, charcoal production, and bush burning.

He also urged the assembly members to support communities to implement environmental bye-laws to curb land degradation. “Let’s encourage tree planting, and conservation agriculture practices. All of these formed part of the FMNR principles.

Utilising the principle will not only restore degraded lands but help improve soil fertility, increase crop yields and improve household food security and income in the process”, he said.

He said World Vision Ghana through the LEAN Project, was addressing this complex situation through FMNR principles that was easy, effective and less costly. The project is working closely with stakeholders to restore 20 degraded parklands in some selected communities in the area.

The chief of Bonyanto community, Samuel Kwaga, said, “The consequences of environmental degradation is dire and therefore, we need to act quickly to prevent our land from becoming a desert”. Citing Sudan and Burkina Faso as example, these countries once were forested areas but bad environmental practices brought desertification.

"Unsustainable logging is increasingly destroying the environment. If this is not controlled, it will have livelihood and environmental consequences for our people in the future", he warned.

He urged stakeholders’ collaboration to stop persistent and unsustainable extraction of forest resources that were rapidly depleting the vegetation of the area.

“This will bring along dire consequences to the people and our next generation if we do not take immediate action”, the chief said.

The fight against illegal logging, indiscriminate tree felling, bushfires, and unsustainable environmental practices requires effective collaboration, which has failed due to a lack of commitment from relevant authorities and stakeholders such as chiefs, assembly members, political leaders, and local governments.

As a result, the participants resolved to work together to prevent land and forest degradation. They promised to facilitate and organize relevant stakeholders to meet with and hold thorough discussions with the Overlord of Gonjaland Traditional Council to work out modalities to deal with the menace of herdsmen, commercial logging, bushfires, indiscriminate tree felling, charcoal production, and other unsustainable environmental practices in the areas.

This move, the presiding Member for West Gonja Municipal, Mumuni Mohammed, said, was necessary to curb environmental hazards, protect livelihoods and health, and build communities' resilience against the impact of climate change.

He said, this will also strengthen the implementation of the Assembly's by-laws on sustainable environmental practices. He thanked World Vision Ghana for introducing communities to FMNR principles, promising to support campaigns for adoption and integration of FMNR to farming practices by smallholder famers in Damongo and its surrounding communities.

The LEAN initiative aims to conserve biodiversity, build climate resilience, reduce emissions from land-use changes in Savanah, High forest, and Transition zones of Ghana, while helping local farmers to improve their livelihoods.

The project is being implemented by a consortium of local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), namely; World Vision Ghana, Rainforest Alliance, Tropenbos Ghana, and Eco Care Ghana.





A chief full name contributing to discussions during the training. Photo: Francis Npong

A Faith leader making a contribution to discussions on roles of the clergy, chiefs, assembly persons and political leadership. Photo: Francis Npong