Forests threatened

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• G. K. Berko 9 years ago

  The Forestry Commission stands indicted along with our recent past Governments and the current Administration for neglecting our Forests to such a deplorable state.
  
  The horrible status of our Forest Estates, private and p ...
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  The Forestry Commission stands indicted along with our recent past Governments and the current Administration for neglecting our Forests to such a deplorable state.
  
  The horrible status of our Forest Estates, private and public, did not drop upon us precipitously. It took a while. Even though the rate was astronomic, we had enough time to arrest the deterioration, even if we could not immediately amass the resources to adequately resuscitate the Forests.
  
  Unfortunately, as has been observed over time, our Political leaders, both Traditional and Secular, always took our Forests for granted and cared minimally about their fate. Our continued overemphasis on expansion of Commerce and Trade in importable manufactured goods, sighting the nation as some leading Trade-hub in the West Africa Sub-region, coupled with our discovery of Oil further aggravated the care regime for our Forests. The Gov'ts were myopic, and did little to diversify to take good care of our Land. All they seem to care for has been fast cash, quick wealth. After all, they might have thought, "Edamus, bibamus, gaudeamus nam cras moriemur" ('Let's eat, drink, and be joyful, for tomorrow we shall die').
  
  The idea that we could simply scour the land for Minerals, especially Gold, with the influx of foreign investments, undermined the security of our Forests in a rapid fashion. The Governments could not even give us locals the respect of honoring our right to be first to own what is naturally ours, and set up policies that would facilitate local partnerships to harness the resources they are now inviting foreigners to take full advantage of.
  
  Many believe, for instance, that the oxymoronic fixation of the Kufuor Regime, on accumulation of wealth (by all means possible) under its policy of making Ghana a Property-owning democracy, provided for the unrestrained access to our land and Forests by anyone with any tools, however crude, to take every Tree or Mineral they could take out without caring about what the environmental consequences could be. Hence, the escalation of galamsey and illegal cutting down of our Forests. The Youths, especially, kind of took the Law into their own hands to encroach upon the Land with their little set of Resources, if the Governments would not assist them but allow outsiders to come in to own everything. Prior to the Kufuor's Administration, illegal timber extraction was the vice that had just begun by the many unemployed Youths with Chainsaws who had returned from Agege on deportation. Farming alone could not sustain them. In fact, the prices of Corn suddenly flopped after many of these Youths had sunk most of their little savings from the Agege Adventure into it and the Government did not have enough funds to buy the produce. Many of the Kalabule-possessed the Purchasing Depot Officers, would also deliberately withhold the funds and tell the clients selling their Corn that Funds had not arrived for purchasing, while, in fact, the Funds had been released to them but they chose to have their colluding agents take the money to go buy from frustrated farmers at cheaper rates to repackage the corn and sold at a higher price at the Depots. Such dubious transactions often occurred in the night. The Depot Officers would weigh at night the Corn they colluded to buy privately from the farmers with bigger sacks for less price. Then during the repackaging, they would use smaller Government sacks to re-weigh the Corn at higher rates the Government was buying the produce. At the end, the Depot Managers share the profit with their Agents, many of whom were their girl-friends.
  
  The subsequent Governments also seemed to have fallen into the same routine, as they didn't seem to want to rattle the hornet nest of growing unemployment by driving the encroachers and poachers out of the land. No significant improvement of the Forests could have been possible without, first, controlling the stampede of the land. Massive International Philanthropic Aids could not automatically arrest the situation, while our own Governments did not seem to care to make the most of them.
  
  The FC would occasionally sound a hollow warning and/or announce its partnership with some entities to rescue the Forests. But practically, little to nothing was done to change the course.
  
  So, what the FC is saying now about this relatively young Program could, therefore, best be heeded with a pinch of salt. We need more concerted, unrelenting efforts to infuse massive enthusiasm in all the stakeholders, from the local Citizenry to the Traditional Chiefs and the Politicians to make the revival of our Forests a top national priority. Any foreign investment into harnessing our Resources from the land must be tightly scrutinized and regulated to ensure sustainability of the Resources.
  
  Rivers and Streams that existed with in our land from time immemorial to provide us with drinking water, especially, have largely died out, leaving behind dry, weedy riverbeds.
  
  To superficially and inadequately find substitute for our Natural water sources, we see now the introduction of deeply commercialized sachet water. The Governments have dubiously supported this trend under the guise of modernity and healthier drinking water, at the expense of our larger benefit of free and abundant water that was not much inferior to the sachet water on the market.
  
  We could as well have introduced better ways to make the existing sources of water healthier, while still abundant and free, or at minimal cost. Now, we are paying more than we could have ever imagined for drinking water, both in terms of what we pay for it and other wider impacting consequences. For example, our lands have lost fertility for our crops from excessive and increasing desiccation. We have laid the land bare to increase erosion and incidence of Floods that tend to be fatal, and we have lost our birthright of enjoying quality wood at the least price from local sources; we now import wood for any serious construction and furniture.
  
  How could any Political leader justify that consequence?!!!
  
  It is time we practiced what we claim we have learnt in the books of the so-called Advanced World. But even without those books, our Ancestors had the brightest of minds to acknowledge the need to guard and preserve for us the Forests and Minerals we came to meet. We have underutilized our skills, our knowledge and unleashed unmatched greed for wealth that we don't seem to care if our posterity would ever find any of those resources to enjoy like our forebears left us. What a wasteful generation we are turning out to be!
  
  Long Live Ghana!!!

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