One of the officials from Ghana Gas planting seedlings at the degraded areas of the forest
The Ghana National Gas Company is poised to help restore the degraded and encroached parts of the Ankasa Forest Reserve in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region.
The company is therefore collaborating with the Forestry Commission to plant trees to restore the forest’s degraded area.
The tree planting exercise will also help to clearly demarcate the boundaries of the forest to prevent further encroachment.
Mrs. Mansah Kamasah, Assistant Manager, Environment of Ghana Gas, said somewhere in 2021, the company engaged the managers of the forest to know some of their challenges and how her outfit could help address them.
“We took that initiative because the forest is in our catchment area,” she disclosed.
She said it was revealed that some farmers were encroaching the forest because the boundaries are not clearly demarcated, and that the encroachers are also degrading parts of the forest.
“So we decided to embark on a nature-based solution by planting trees to not only reclaim the degraded portions and to indicate the boundaries, but also to help mitigate or reduce the effect of climate change,” she noted.
She said it was revealed that the boundaries and the degraded portions of the forest were about 80 kilometers.
She indicated that in 2022, her outfit started to plant trees to cover about 40 kilometers of the boundaries and revealed that within the next ten years, the gas processing company hopes to plant trees to indicate all the boundaries and restore the degraded portions.
Mr. Douglas Asuako Fetah, Acting Area Head of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Ellembelle District urged the residents, particularly farmers, to desist from encroaching the forest.
He implored on them to make tree planting part of their daily activities if possible, and not to wait for such initiatives by Ghana Gas before they plant trees.
Mr. Richard Ofori Amoako, Western, Western North, and Central Regional Manager of Forestry Commission, praised the gas processing company for the move.
He mentioned inadequate financial support and unavailability of vehicles for deployment and patrol as major challenges confronting the Commission, and pleaded with the government to help address the challenges to enable his outfit operate effectively.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Ankasa Forest