Stock Lake Bosomtwe with tilapia

Kuntanase (Ash), Dec 2, GNA- A traditional ruler has called on the Institute of Aquatic Biology and the Department of Fisheries of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to re-stock Lake Bosomtwe with tilapia.

This, he said, would help replenish the lake, to produce fish in a large scale for domestic consumption.

Okogyeasuo Dwumaku Nkrumah II, chief of Asaman, one of the communities along the lake in the Amansie East District, said re-stocking the lake would also be in line with government's policy of protecting endangered species of the country's natural resources. He was speaking at the second training workshop of the Lake Bosomtwe Biodiversity Project on Tuesday at Kokoado near Kuntanase in the Bosomtwe-Atwima-Kwanwoma District of Ashanti. The project is a collaborative work between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Friends of the Earth -Ghana and communities along the lake.

It aims at finding ways of protecting the lake from all manner of pollution, the depletion of the forest cover and the eco-system. Okogyeasuo Nkrumah noted that the lake had been over exploited and as such everything possible should be done to save it from further depletion.

He therefore pledged the support of all chiefs along the lake to do everything possible to protect it.

Dr Yeboah Yentumi, UNDP Policy Advisor on Environment, said the UNDP and the government would sponsor the project on the biodiversity of the lake for the next four years.

Mr Theophilius Anderson, Director of Friends of the Earth -Ghana and the Director of the Bosomtwe Biodiversity Project, said it was the objective of his organisation to protect the flora and fauna both in the lake and along it.

To make the project a success, he said, an environmental awareness involving school children had been organised for them on the need to protect the lake.