Media must highlight the environmental threat

A former Director of Editorial of the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Mr Boakye Dankwa Boadi, has urged the media to lead the national crusade against the reckless destruction of the environment through mining.

He said journalists needed to do more to highlight the extent of the threat to aid people to act responsibly and work together to preserve the eco-system and biodiversity.

The call comes amid the continuous massive plundering of the country’s forests and the pollution of water bodies through mining, illegal logging and farming.

Ghana’s total forest cover, which stood at 8.2 million hectares, representing 34 per cent of the total land area at the turn of the 20th Century, has now shrunk to about 1.6 million hectares.

Addressing a three-day training workshop for selected journalists in Tema, Mr Boadi, who also served as a lecturer of the Ghana Institute of Journalism, cited the findings of a survey conducted by the Lands and Forestry Ministry, which shows that more than 80 per cent of the total land mass, originally lush with humid tropical forests, has been ruined.

Mr Boadi described the situation as deeply disturbing.

He noted that the rich savannah was also seriously being lost at an alarming rate and warned that if the proper things were not done quickly, the nation stood the risk of getting stripped bare of its forest cover in less than 20 years, given the annual rate of deforestation, put at 65, 000 hectares.

The workshop, jointly organized by WACAM and CARE, both non-governmental organizations (NGO), was meant to help update the knowledge and build the capacity of the participants to better report on environmental issues.

Topics treated included, “History and overview of mining investment in Ghana”, “Review and gaps in the Minerals and Mining Act 703 – benefits of Standing Forest”, “Health Implications of Mining”, “Deficits in Environmental Laws in Ghana, and How to address them”, and “Environmental and community reporting”.

Mr Boadi took the journalists through environmental reporting and reminded them to make deliberate efforts to study and become abreast of the laws pertaining to the environment for accurate and in-depth reportage.