Okyenhene bemoans lingering activities of galamsey

Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin has bemoaned the lingering occurrence of galamsey and deforestation activities which hugely undermine efforts to green the environment and also protect mining in river bodies.

According to the Okyenhene, it is better to halt the greening of the environment and the protection of water bodies if the gains achieved cannot be safeguarded in the future.

Osagyefuo Ofori Panin made the comments in an interaction with a delegation from the ministry of lands and natural resources and the forestry commission who paid a call on him

He said: “Even though we may be divided by political boundaries, we are united by ecological systems. I don’t care where you are, one tree, one plant that you destroy affects somebody somewhere else. So, it is a responsibility that we need to hold to replant so for the government of the day to see that we need to make that investment in planting trees and restoring our forest and making our tour sites better. “

He added that “we need to have supervision to stop this galamsey that destroy the land that we are trying to rebuild or restore. Otherwise, where are we going? If I’m planting now and 5 years from now somebody will come and cut it for galamsey, then we might as well stop right now.”

Also, the Okyenhene advocated for traditional authorities to spearhead the upcoming Green Ghana initiative in order to give the indigenes a sense of ownership of the initiative.

“So, if we the Nananom [Chiefs] are asked to lead in this [Green Ghana] then we need to be part of the negotiations, we need to be part of the arrangements, we need to be part of where we’re going to get the seedlings from, we need to be in charge because for a system to work, for any sustainable development to work, the people within the localities will have to own the projects otherwise it won’t go.

“So, we’re going to plant, yes, but the indigenous people should be owning the planting project so that Ghana will be better off,” he added.

Forestry Commission to plant 20 million trees

Meanwhile, the CEO of the Forestry Commission, John Allotey has said about 20 million trees of different species would be planted across the country on 10 June to mark this year’s Green Ghana Day.

The day has been set aside to plant trees to restore Ghana’s depleted forest cover.

Allotey said out of the 20 million trees, the Volta Region is assigned to plant 500,000. In last year’s exercise, the region planted 200,000 trees across18 districts by persons from all walks of life and organisations including security agencies, churches and schools.

Philip Asiawo and Nicholas Brown

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