Editorial by Ghanaian Times: Make LEAN attract similar projects to conserve country’s biodiversity

It is good news that there is a formal private effort in the afforestation drive in the country.

In 2020, the Landscape Environmental Agility Across the Nation (LEAN) project was launched.

LEAN is a four-year project funded by the European Union (EU)’s flagship Global Climate Change Alliance Plus (GCCA+) initiative and aims to conserve biodiversity, build climate resil­ience, and reduce emissions from land-use changes in the savannah, high forest, and transition zones of the country.

Besides, it helps local farmers to improve their livelihoods.

As envisaged and scheduled, the LEAN has been implemented on the ground by a consortium of four local and international NGOs with expertise in these challenging fields, namely the Rainforest Alliance, World Vision Ghana, Tropenbos Ghana, and EcoCare Ghana.

The project seeks to address three structural barriers that have historically hindered efforts by governments, civil society organ­isations, and the private sector to halt land degradation and deforestation through the uptake of landscape approaches.

It is said that although there is growing recognition of the im­portance of landscape approach­es in addressing sustainability challenges, there is still a lack of effective tools, resources, and incentives to drive aligned action at the expected scale.

It is on the basis of this that the LEAN project sought to work alongside all stakeholders to mobilise and effectively deploy resources and tools that would support targeted sustainability interventions.

Set to end on October 31, 2024, the LEAN focused on the Savanna, high forest, and transitional zones of Ghana by supporting local farmers in improving their livelihoods.

It has more than 5,000 benefi­ciaries currently.

The initiative encourages small­holder farmers to adopt more sustainable farming and forest management practices, with add­ed market incentives to diversify rural income opportunities.

So far, more than 600,000 tree seedlings have been planted across 13 communities in the transitional zones of the Bono East and Ashanti regions in the last four years to restore degrad­ed forest areas.

The EU’s GCCA+ funded the $5-million afforestation drive.

The Ghanaian Times sees the three-day verification visit last week by the four consortium partners – ECOCare Ghana, Tropenbos Ghana, Rainforest Alliance, and World Vision Gha­na – to the beneficiary commu­nities as an evaluation undertak­ing since the project has almost come to an end.

It is hoped that the visit can af­firm the accomplishment of the targets set or otherwise, it would point out whatever is left to be done so that at the end of it all, it will be celebrated and those be­hind it hailed as having contribut­ed to the government’s efforts in conserving the country’s biodi­versity, enhancing climate change resilience, and reducing carbon emissions from land use.

It is everyone’s hope that the Landscape Management Boards (LMBs) formed to take over the running of the project when it folds up would not let the coun­try down.

Hopefully, they would dis­charge the duties such that other development partners would come in to initiate similar proj­ects in other parts of the country.

The EU and the Rainforest Alliance, World Vision Ghana, Tropenbos Ghana, and EcoCare Ghana in particular, as well as others behind the LEAN project, deserve all the commendation for, undoubtedly, seeing to the successful end of the project they launched in 2020.