2022 Green Ghana Day: Lands Ministry targets 20m trees Friday
The nation will take another bold step towards restoring degraded and deforested landscapes with the planting of 20 million tree seedlings on Friday.
The state intervention, dubbed Green Ghana Day (GGD), is to replenish the lost forest cover to help address the negative impact of climate change in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13, which mandates UN-member countries to "take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts."
Advertisement
It is within the context of the Forestry Commission's estimation that about 6.6 million hectares of the country’s 8.2 million-hectare forest reserve has been depleted since 1900 through indiscriminate human activities.
Target
Half of the 20 million target will be implemented in degraded forest reserves.
Per the arrangements, farmers will be supplied with tree seedlings to plant within and around their farms.
Additionally, the focus will be on native timber species such as shade providers, multi-purpose leguminous trees, ornamental and fruit trees.
In terms of the regional breakdown, the Ashanti Region is expected to plant 3.5 million seedlings; Greater Accra, 2.5 million, with the Eastern Region planting two million.
The Central and Western North regions will have 1.5 million each while the Bono East plants 1.2 million seedlings.
The Ahafo, Bono, Northern, Savannah and Western regions will plant one million seedlings each.
Also, the Oti, Upper East and Upper West regions will plant 600,000 seedlings, with the North East and Volta regions planting 500,000 each.
High-level support
On Friday, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, will lead the charge in planting a tree seedling at the Efua Sutherland Children's Park, where he would be joined by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Samuel Abu Jinapor, and other dignatories to plant trees at the same venue.
The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, will lead the regional and decentralised planting in Tamale, the Northern Regional capital, while members of the diplomatic corps will plant seedlings at the Achimota Forest.
The Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Andrew Amoako Asiamah, will plant a seedling at the forecourt of Parliament, while the Chief Justice, Kwasi Annin Yeboah, will plant at the Court Complex.
We are ready
The Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in charge of Forestry, Benito Owusu-Bio, is upbeat about the success of the event.
Mr Owusu-Bio, who is also the Chairman of the 2022 GGD, said mobilisation of resources, both human and material, was at its best, raising the hope that the 20 million seedlings targeted to be planted would be achieved on the day.
He explained that the three arms of government - The Executive, Legislature and Judiciary; traditional authorities, security agencies, corporate institutions, MMDAs, faith-based organisations (FBOs) as well as the Ghana Education Service (GES) had all been rallied to play key roles in the exercise.
In terms of logistics for the deployment of seedlings on Friday, he said the Lands and Natural Resources Ministry had entered into a partnership with Zoomlion Ghana Limited as the main corporate sponsor to help in transporting the seedlings to pick-up points such as malls, schools, churches and palaces.
"The security agencies such as the army, the police, Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Ghana Prison Service (GPS) will participate fully in the exercise and also provide security.
"Through the National House of Chiefs, we have also reached out to the various paramountcies to support the initiative, and the response has been massive," Mr Owusu-Bio said.
"The various forestry districts and their regional managers have been able to identify more than 60 degraded forest reserves compartments which we are anticipating to plant on that day.
"One forest reserve is about 128 hectares and to plant trees in one hectare, you need 1,000 seedlings, and 128 hectares will require 128,000 seedlings," he said.
Adopt forest reserve
The GGD chairman observed that since planting 20 million seedlings required a lot of financial resources, the engagement with the stakeholders was to make them understand that they could take up the tree-planting exercise as their corporate social responsibility to show that they valued the environment.
He added that those institutions had been urged to adopt degraded forest reserves and plant trees to help restore the environment.
Collaboration with churches
Again, Mr Owusu-Bio said, the GGD committee would collaborate with the churches to institute innovative ways of sustaining the tree-planting exercise.
"We are suggesting that when a child is being named or baptised, a tree should be planted in the name of that child so that when that child grows, he or she will be more concerned about the survival of that tree.
“Also, during weddings or marriage ceremonies, the couple should plant a tree to represent that marriage. On the death of a person, we can plant a tree in their honour on the day so that it will be a memorial," he said.
Greater Accra
The Daily Graphic’s visit to the Achimota central nursery of the Forestry Commission on Friday, April 29, saw about 50 temporary employees busily working to keep the seedlings in good shape for June 10.
While some were perforating holes at the base of bagged plants to eliminate standing water, others were controlling weeds on the two-hectare land on which 25,000 seedlings of various species had been nursed.
Some of the seedlings were also being transplanted into pots ahead of lifting for the June 10 tree-planting.
Among the tree species that were being nursed at the site are millettia, mahogany, cassia, teak, tree of life, umbrella tree and flamboyant.
The Deputy Greater Accra Regional Manager of the Forestry Commission, George Agbenowoshi, who was at the nursery, explained that the 925,000 seedlings at the Achimota central nursery were part of 2.5 million seedlings targeted to be planted in the Greater Accra Region on the GGD.
Similarly, 725,000 seedlings were being raised at the Amasaman Forestry District while the Ada and Ayikuma nurseries are hosting 50,000 and 700,000 seedlings, respectively.
In terms of the challenges confronting the Forestry Commission in the Greater Accra Region in relation to GGD, he said the major obstacle was inadequate vehicles to transport the plants.
However, he said the partnership with Zoomlion would help address that challenge.
Again, Mr Agbenowoshi said some school authorities had been contacted to provide relevant information on designated points for collection of seedlings as well as the location of some sites to facilitate the tree-planting exercise.
"We have also made arrangements to use some malls such as Accra Mall, Achimota Mall, China Mall, West Hills Mall, Melcom shops as distribution points for the seedlings," he added.
Eastern Region
When the Daily Graphic visited the Eastern Region on May 5, this year, it came to light that the region, which has seven forest districts and 46 forest reserves, had already raised more than the targeted 2.5 million seedlings for the GGD, with 1,776,184 tree seedlings ready for lifting.
The Regional Manager of the Forestry Commission, Kwabena Poku Bosompim, explained that each of the seven forest districts in the region - Begro, Oda, Mpraeso, Somanya, Donkorkrom, Kyebi and Kade, were actively involved in raising the seedlings and mobilising stakeholders to participate in tree-planting on the GGD.
Mr Bosompim said 60 per cent of the 2.5 million tree seedlings would be planted on 888 hectares of degraded land that had been prepared in forest reserves while the remaining 40 per cent would be hosted on 484.3 hectares of land in off-reserve areas.
Ashanti Region
In the Ashanti Region, the eight forest districts were working hard to meet the four million seedlings target given the region for the GGD.
The region has 60 forest reserves with a total area of 3,894.47 square kilometres (Sq km) and perimeter of 2,738.06 km.
The Regional Manager of the Forestry Commission, Augustine Kofi Gyedu, explained that a total of 1,664 hectares of degraded forest reserves would be planted.
Mr Gyedu said as of April 30, this year, some 3.7 million seedlings were ready for planting, with the remaining 300,000 expected to be ready before June 10.
Central Region
Providing an update on the region's preparedness for the GGD, the Regional Manager of Forestry Services Division, Michael Y. Pentsil, said as of April 30, 1,550,000 seedlings were ready for distribution.
He said the remaining 50,000 seedlings would be ready within three weeks to complete the target.
"Currently, site preparations are ongoing in selected forest reserves, while approximately 95 per cent of the targeted seedlings are ready and available for distribution,” he said.
Northern Region
In the Northern Region, 228 hectares of degraded forest reserves and 49.55 hectares of off-reserve sites are expected to be planted on the day.
The region has two forest districts - Tamale and Yendi, and 11 forest reserves, with a total perimeter of 309.99 km.
The Regional Manager of the Forestry Commission, Bernard Tabil, said land preparation in the forest reserves was about 80 per cent complete.
Regarding the preparation for the GGD, Mr Tabil said the Tamale and Yendi Forest districts were nursing 500,000 seedlings each to meet the one million target.