Waterweeds experts inspect islands along Volta River

Ada, Aug. 21, GNA - A team of water-weeds experts from Natural Heritage Institute in San Francisco, California, United State of America (USA), has toured the 37 islands along the Volta River at Ada in the Damgbe East District of the Greater Accra Region to acquaint themselves with problems that water-weeds and devastating erosion pose to the island dwellers.

Mr Gregor Thomas, leader, told the Ghana News Agency that the team was on the inspection tour of the Ada Islands to get first-hand information on water-weeds and devastating erosion of some Islands, due to artificial islands being created by tourists and other forms of human activities within the environs of the Volta River. At Ada, Nene Tsatsu Perdiator the Fourth of Kudragbe divisional clan of the Ada Traditional Area received the team. The team visited places like the University of Ghana, Legon, Aqua Farm, the Volta Estuary, Aflive, Tuanikope and some artificial islands to a point where they observed that about 50 metres of a tributary of the Volta River, had been covered with weeds and tree stumps. Nene Perdiator said the waterweeds in the Volta River at Ada provide breeding place for bilharzias, snails, and insects that cause night blindness.

The chief expressed regret that this situation was making navigation on the Volta River risky, because fishermen always had their nets and canoes destroyed.

Touching on the artificial Islands being created by tourists and other forms of human activities, Nene Perdiator said, this had led to the submerging of some natural islands, thereby destroying the ecological system and the habitat of marine fishes. According to the team of experts, they would forward proposals on their inspection tour to the US and other donor agencies for funding not only to help dredge the Volta, but to also protect its banks.