Preserve forest resources -Adow

Bunso (Eastern Region)), 10 March, '99 -

Bunso (Eastern Region)), 10 March, '99 - Ms Patience Adow, Eastern Regional Minister, has stressed the importance that government attaches to the preservation of the country's forests. She was opening the ninth annual review workshop of the Collaborative Community Forestry Initiative (CCFI), geared towards tree seedlings production and tree planting at the Bunso Cocoa College on Tuesday. The five-day workshop is organised by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) and it is being attended by American Peace Corps volunteers, officials of the forestry department, the ministry of Food and Agriculture, and regional community representatives. The workshop will discuss seedling production and distribution, survival rates and loan recovery among other topics. In an address read on her behalf, Ms Adow regretted that Ghana's huge forestry asset had reduced to 4.4 million hectares. She said as at now Ghana has less than two million hectares of tropical rain forest " being still abused to our detriment and that of posterity." She hoped that the workshop would seriously address this problem and come out with "strategies to propel the nation into the next millennium to halt the fast depletion of our forest". Ms Adow said the problems of deforestation in Ghana have become so acute that even the vegetative cover along rivers had been totally destroyed, resulting in the drying up of rivers. She commended ADRA's role in environmental restoration and called on other non-governmental organisations to emulate ADRA. It is gratifying that ADRA and American peace corps volunteers have produced to date as many as five million tree seedlings. They have also planted 150,000 hectares of land with various species of trees, she added. The country director of ADRA, Mr George Baiden, said- "environmental degradation is now part of our life," and therefore called for cordial working relationship between stakeholders to promote tree seedling production and tree planting. Mr Baiden said CCFI formed 11 years ago faced problems of communication and resources and asked the participants to find ways and means to "remove these constraints and work as a team to promote environmental peace in the country". He reminded them that tree planting is a vital economic activity, and therefore implored them to encourage their communities to embark on tree planting to stop environmental degradation.