Benito Owusu-Bio
GHANA’S AFFORESTATION agenda dubbed ‘Green Ghana’ was amply publicised during the 17th session of the United Nations Forum on Forests last week.
Doing the honours was the Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Benito Owusu-Bio, who touted Ghana’s afforestation project in a manner which attracted copious attention.
His presentation about how far Ghana has gone with the project underscored the seriousness with which government is responding to the subject.
As a representative of Ghana and the ministry at the forum, Mr. Owusu-Bio said in achieving government’s target of planting 20 million trees for the 2022 Green Ghana Project, the ministry will mobilise key stakeholders such as the security agencies, traditional authorities, media houses, schools and local communities as well as corporate organisations and civil society groups to plant trees on degraded forest landscapes, farm lands, watersheds among others.
The Green Ghana initiative, he said, has become an annual event to significantly increase the forest cover of Ghana, halt forest degradation and substantially contribute to target 1.3 of the Global Forest Goal 1.
He added that as part of the country’s commitment to the achievement of the goals and targets of United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Forests, “Ghana announced her voluntary national contribution last year, at the 16th session”, which he said would be elaborated in a separate report.
Mr. Owusu-Bio hoped for fruitful deliberations at the forum, which is currently ongoing in New York in the United States of America.
Also at the forum with the Deputy Minister are the CEO of the Forestry Commission, John Allotey and the Technical Director for Forestry, Joseph Osiakwan.
BY A.R. Gomda