The Forestry Commission in the Bono Region is aiming at planting 1.2 million seedlings across the region as their quota of the 20 million trees Ghana targets to plant nationwide in the 2022 edition of the ‘Green Ghana’ initiative.
The 2022 edition of the project which was launched by President Akufo-Addo on Tuesday (1 March) would see the Bono Region planting tree species like ofram, mahogany, teak, cashew, mangoes and gmelina.
Speaking in an interview with our regional correspondent Daniel Donkor, the Bono regional manager of the commission, Isaac Noble Eshun said, last year the region planted 670,000 seedlings at the start of the project and 90% of the seedlings are thriving.
The Green Ghana Project
The Green Ghana project which commenced in 2021 with the planting of over five million trees nationwide is aimed at restoring Ghana’s depleted forest cover. It is also to reduce the impact of climate change in Ghana.
According to Eshun, they hope to exceed the targeted 1.2 million seedlings they intend to plant.
“We hope to exceed the 1.2 million seedlings this year. We have two forest districts, the Sunyani district is charged with distributing and planting 600,000 tree seedlings and we another office in Dormaa, they are also charged with distributing and planting 400,000, then my office in the Region is to distribute and plant 200,000 seedlings, so together it makes up the 1.2 million seedlings”.
Challenges
The major challenge last year, Eshun said, was people collecting the seedlings but failing to plant early. Again, he said cattle grazing, timber lumbering and bushfires started by herdsmen are other challenges the region is facing.
He said the forest reserves have been drastically degraded as a result of intensive grazing by hundreds of cattle and the burning of the forest by the herdsmen.
“Currently our major challenge apart from erratic rainfall is cattle, these nomadic cattle and their herdsmen. What use is it for us to plant trees if we plant them and the following year or that same year cattle migrate from the north come and trample on them inside our forest? That is the biggest challenge we are having here in the Bono Region, especially the Wenchi area towards Techiman, Chiraa and Berekum area.
“…We have hauls of cattle who have invaded our forest reserves and where we have planted, where private people have invested money to plant, the cattle are destroying them. And apart from that, they are also attacking the farmers, destroying the crops that the farmers inter-crop with our trees so it goes to discourage them from going ahead with the tree planting”.
Advice
Eshun urged Ghanaians to report people who tamper with the trees planted to the commission. He also called on all individuals, and stakeholders to help the Commission in the afforestation effort. He also urged Ghanaians to make tree planting a daily affair as it could be a source of income.
Daniel Donkor
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