Ministry pledges to link environment to development

Accra, Feb. 24, GNA - Mr George K. Scott, Chief Director of the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology on Tuesday said the ministry would strive to improve the country's development through the use of science and technology.

He said the ministry would liaise with all the departments and agencies under it to help them update their research findings to be used in the development drive.

"Research findings should not remain on the shelves and be covered with dusts as had been happening in some of the institutions, but rather be explored in order to derive the benefits," he said. Mr Scott said this at the third National Biodiversity Committee meeting held in Accra.

The Committee, with the Chief Director as it national focal person, was set up by the ministry during the last National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime.

It was to help build up the biodiversity of the country, which includes variety of species of plants and animals, their genetic make-up, and the natural communities in which they occur. He urged the committee members to speed up plans and programmes for the protection of the country's environment to ensure its sustenance for the future generation.

Mr Scott urged committee members to share ideas with him so that biodiversity needs would be mainstreamed into national activities. Mr Alfred Oteng -Yeboah, Chairman of the Committee said Ghana as a signatory to a number of conventions, was accountable to the rest of the world in terms of those conventions, hence the need to attach seriousness to the implementation of the convention requirements. He said government had received some funding from United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for promoting biodiversity. "What is needed is for us to come out with a good biodiversity document that would be a guide for the country," he said.