250 Acres Of Forest Plantations Established In West Mamprusi

As part of the implementation of a climate change resilience project by the Zasilari Ecological Farms Projects [ZEFP] in five communities in the West Mamprusi District of the Northern Region of Ghana, a wide-range of eco-friendly measures have been rolled out to enable residents there adapt to climate change vulnerability effects.

Dubbed “Expanding Climate Change Resilience in Northern Ghana (ECCRING)” and funded by CIDA and the Canadian Hunger Foundation (CHF) and implemented by the Association of Church-Based Development NGOs (ACDEP) in collaboration with ZEFP, the 15-month project is aimed at combating desertification and deforestation problems in all fronts and also addressing food security challenges of beneficiary communities. This effort would also contribute to the global climate change mitigation efforts through carbon sequestration.

According to the Project Coordinator Issifu Sulemana Jobila in an interview with Savannahnews, the five communities which included Zangum, Sayoo, Nayoku, Guakudow and Guabuliga received a total of 140,000 seedlings to establish 50 acre forest plantations each in their respective localities.

The seedlings, made up of fruit trees such as grafted mangoes which start producing within a short period of time, he explained, would eventually address food and nutritional security problems of the people as well as provide income for their families if planted and properly taken care of.

He also noted for instance that, other tree seedlings such as acacia, teak, lucinia, moringa, kapok and mahogany were to be planted for the purposes of enriching the ecology (natural environment) of the various communities, provide residents with woodlots for building and other forms of construction, fodder for their ruminants and also serve as medicinal/herbal purposes in future.  

Mr. Jobila further disclosed that efforts were being made by ZEFP to rehabilitate major rivers and the basic school buildings in the Sayoo community for instance, through some afforestation programmes so that they could help protect buildings and other structures against rainstorms as part of the ongoing efforts to strengthen the community’s resilience against climate change impacts.

The ECCRING project is expected to support women and other vulnerable farmers in Northern Ghana to enable them to adapt to increasingly erratic rainfall and rising temperatures. The project seeks to build on earlier successes in the area by expanding into 18 new rural communities to increase crop harvests and augment incomes amongst families.

The project would raise awareness of the negative impacts of climate change and how they could be reduced, and would build the capacity of regional organizations, districts, communities and beneficiaries to address climate change effects and manage natural disasters. New farming methods and technologies would also be introduced to increase the use of drought-resistant crops and improve livestock production methods.

So far, 1,000 individual smallholder farmers; 200 people from each of the five communities have been supported with 2,080 climate change resilient goats to rear.

10,000 vulnerable rural women and men in the 18 communities including the aforementioned would receive direct support, and the project is expected to benefit approximately 50,000 people in total whereas household food security and income are both expected to increase by 35% over the 15 month period of the project implementation.