Nine honoured in Central Region for protecting the environment

Dunkwa-On-Offin (C/R), Oct. 21, GNA 96 Some nine individuals and institutions in the Central Region were on Friday honoured for contributing toward the protection of the environment at this year's regional celebration of World Environment Day held at Dunkwa-On-Offin. The Upper Denkyira District was adjudged the cleanest district, while the Mfantsiman district won honours for emerging as the environmentally proactive district. The Dunkwa Government Hospital was honoured for having the best landscape layout, while Dunkwa-based =91Spark FM' received an award for being the environmentally friendly media house.

There were also awards for tree planting, environmentally concerned citizens, well-planned town, best environment health officer and regional environmental personality of the year. They were each presented with a certificate and a citation. Chiefs, school children and heads of departments attended the ceremony which was under the theme: 93Deserts and desertification, don't desert dry land=94.

In a speech read for him, Central Regional Minister Nana Ato Arthur entreated District Assemblies to ensure the strict enforcement of bye-laws on indiscriminate bush burning, tree felling, illegal mining and other activities that deplete the vegetation cover resulting in desertification.

He said it was imperative for the Assemblies to enforce the bye-laws because more than 38 percent of the environmental problems in the region related to land degradation mostly caused by human activities.

Nana Arthur stressed that about 40 percent of the Region's 4,000 km-sq area was susceptible to desertification and that the Region loses about 43 million dollars per annum due to degradation. He called for prompt action to restore degraded areas and protect the remaining patches of the forest area so as to meet the millennium development goals that seek to reduce poverty and hunger and promote environmental sustainability.

He was happy that the government was tackling desertification as a prioritized development issue and had committed resources in various dimensions to combat it.

Nana Arthur called on the people to support government's effort to protect the environment by planting more trees and also to desist from activities that would further deplete the environment. Mr Francis Zakari, Regional Director of EPA, said desertification still remained a critical issue in sub-Saharan Africa and that about 35 percent of the total land area of Ghana was seriously threatened. He estimated that the nation loses about nine billion dollars annually through land degradation.

He appealed to the Government to prioritize desertification on its development programme by promptly committing enough resources to sector agencies involved in its control.

Mr Zakari also called on Municipal and District Assemblies, chiefs and opinion leaders to ensure that natural resources such as the forest were effectively and sensibly used to meet the needs of the present and future generations. 21 Oct. 06