Workshop on Bushfire Underway in Bolgatanga

Bolgatanga, Feb. 16 GNA - A five-day National Collaborative Workshop on How to Manage Bushfires in the Northern Savannah Zone of the Country began in Bolgatanga on Monday, under the theme: "The Chief, The Forester and The Fireman".

It is being jointly organised by CARE International-Ghana, an international nongovernmental organisation (NGO) and the University for Development Studies (UDS), with funding from the Royal Danish Embassy-sponsored Bushfires Management and Rural Livelihoods in Northern Ghana (BURN) Project.

Opening the workshop, the Upper East Regional Coordinating Director, Mr George Anaba reminded the participants and organisers that any effort towards finding a lasting solution to the menace of bushfires should not lose sight of the socio-cultural and economic factors that work together to compel people to refuse to their attitude towards bush burning. He said the long-term negative impact of bushfires on the livelihoods of the people of the Savannah Zone in terms of loss of vegetation; soil degradation and the eventual declining crop yields were enormous enough to demand serious attention.

The Regional Coordinating Director reminded the participants that many projects and programmes on how to control and manage bushfires in the past did not achieved the desired results because of the minimal involvement of local communities.

Mr Anaba, therefore, called on the organizers and participants to learn from these past programmes so as not to fall prey to the same mistakes they made in the past, emphasizing the need for them strengthen community linkages.

In an overview, the BURN Project Co-ordinator of CARE International, Mr Cyril Yabepone said the workshop aimed to inform, initiate and support policy dialogue between the Government, traditional authorities and community groups in the selected communities that were prone to bushfires.

He said the workshop would also provide a forum for participants to look at the role of social institutions associated with the use and management of bushfires in savannah resource management and to examine the historical insights of bushfires from studies carried out between 1928-1963 in some parts of the West Africa Sub-Region.

Mr Yabepone said there was enough evidence to suggest that bushfires have been managed successfully in the past through the enforcement of traditional regulatory systems, saying that participants would be exposed to some of these systems that could be incorporated into modern day regulatory laws.

Chiefs, leaders of women groups and landowners from four pilot communities, researchers, development partners, and government agencies involved in natural resource management are attending the workshop.

The Presiding Member of the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly (BMA), Mr Nicholas Nayembil, who chaired the function, called for new strategies including empowering traditional authorities to preserve the environment in their communities.

The BURN project is a joint initiative between CARE International in Ghana and the University for Development Studies (UDS), with funding from the Royal Danish Embassy in Accra.

It is being piloted in Agubie in the Wenchi District of the Brong Ahafo Region, Kalbeon in the Bolgatanga Municipality and in Bowko rpt (Bowko) and Wulugu in East Mamprusi and West Mamprusi Districts, respectively, in the Northern Region.

The project is working with community-based local NGOs in the pilot areas to facilitate community-based natural resource analysis, action research, testing of models on bushfire management systems to provide the basis for dialogue and advocacy on bushfire policy, and legislation at all levels.

The project is to also increase the awareness and full involvement of policy makers at all levels in governance in dialogue on strengthening community participation and ownership of bushfire control and management systems.