Yesterday, we collectively planted as a nation five million trees countrywide. We deserve to pat each other on the back for a wonderful performance.
The pre-planting publicity and sensitisation programme was apt and effective.
We should especially congratulate the President for thinking out the project; hints about which he dropped during his last State of the Nation Address.
There is no doubt that Ghana will find space on the international map of ecological restoration.
In a country which has no shortage of rainfall and part of which is saddled within the tropical rainfall belt, only irresponsible exploitation of the forest will lead us to our present notch.
Some animal and bird species are on the verge of extinction because their habitats made up of a variety of trees have been felled for firewood.
Sustainable exploitation of our forest cover should be the way forward henceforth. That for many decades trees were felled with little or no thought about planting replacements only highlighted a dearth of knowledge about the environment.
Now that we have come back to our senses and are appreciating more than we have ever done before, the importance of trees, and the need to plant them to reverse the appalling situation we find ourselves in, we must never look back.
The world, especially the Amazonian countries such as Brazil, would learn from us the need to be responsible in our relationship with the environment.
It can only be conjectured the effects of not doing anything about our depleted forest situation and maintaining the status quo. We have been eventually doomed with our forests completely decimated as we countenance the negative fallouts of such a situation.
The rate of desertification would now be arrested to our advantage, especially in areas bordering the Sahelian zone.
So many trees have been felled in the Northern parts of the country for charcoal production and firewood that the windshield role the trees play is no more. The effect is the destructive storms which now precede most rainfalls in these parts of the country.
Even economic trees such as shea and rosewood have not been spared our irresponsible attitude.
Having invested so much in the project, we must consider a strict regime of nurturing, monitoring, evaluation and replacement of dead trees where necessary.
We must also consider legislation that would protect the country’s forest cover.
The mahogany and neem trees planted by the British colonial authorities still stand today. Some of such trees have been felled through our irresponsible attitude towards the environment.
The Ridge area of Accra beyond the TUC building towards the Greater Accra Regional Hospital used to be riddled with a dense tree cover. Indeed, there used to be monkeys on the canopies. The trees lining the traffic intersection at the Roman Catholic Cathedral as one drives towards the TUC were planted during the early days of colonialism. These and those being planted today must be protected through an appropriate legislation.
The Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) work hand in hand with the Department of Parks and Gardens to keep these trees alive.