Samuel Abu Jinapor
The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has assured Ghanaians of the government’s commitment to preserve and efficiently utilize the countries resources.
Speaking at the Ministry of Information’s ‘Meet The Press’ series in Accra yesterday, the Minister said the ruling government will deal with people whose stock in trade is to destroy the country’s forest cover.
He said, “let me assure you that government of President Akufo-Addo remains absolutely determined to protect and preserve theses resources for current and future generations. What is important is the commitment to protect and preserve these resources which we are fully determined to do.”
He said the government in addition to all the measures put in place to protect the forest reserves including the suspension of cognizance, prospecting, and exploration in forest reserves have also banned the harvesting and trading of Rose Wood and the trading of endangered species.
“We have also embarked on afforestation and reforestation programme through initiatives such as the Green Ghana project, the forest plantation strategy, the youth in afforestation programme, the youth in plantation, the Ghana Redd+ strategy and the forest investment programme. For example, under the Ghana forest plantation strategy, a total of 547,891 degraded forest lands were cultivated between 2017 and 2021 far in excess of the 157,300 hectares forest cultivated between 1963 and 2016”.
He also called on all Ghanaians irrespective of their political leanings to support the government in as it continuously makes efforts to protect the forest giving the gravity of forest loss and its adverse consequences on nations’ survival.
Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission, John Allotey for his part said that the size of the country’s forest has reduced significantly over the years due to illegal mining activities,
According to him, though the size of the country’s forest cover has improved, there was no significant improvement between 2015 and 2019.
He indicated that as part of measures to halt illegal logging in the forest, the Commission has employed a technology called “wood tracking system” to monitor the movement of wood from the forest and in the market.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah