ZEFP Trains 125 Anti-Wildfire Fighters In West Mamprusi

Recruits at Training 

In less than two months from now, the harmattan or dry season in the Savannah Regions of Ghana will begin, and the anxiety that often greets this period of the year as a result of wildfires caused by either humans or nature is highly anticipated.

During the period of November to February every year, all farmlands, bushes and even forest areas that loose moisture in their natural environment due to the end of the rainy season, becomes more vulnerable to wildfires mostly caused by farmers, herdsmen, group hunters and charcoal producers.

In the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions, it is undeniably a fact, that the biggest cause of environmental degradation is uncontrolled or indiscriminate bush-burning by the people during the dry season.

Besides, the practice coupled with indiscriminate tree felling is further exacerbating climate change effects in the area as desertification, crop failure, drought, rising temperatures, flood, among others are beginning to manifest in recent years.

Against this background, the Zasilari Ecological Farms Project (ZEFP), a local non-governmental organisation in the West Mamprusi District of the Northern Region, has formed and trained anti-wildfire fighters’ in five communities to help fight bush fires in those areas because of their vulnerability to climate change effects.

The training of the anti-wildfire fighters which is part of the implementation of a CIDA and Canadian Hunger Foundation funded climate change project implemented by ZEFP in collaboration with the Association of Church-Based Development NGOs (ACDEP) is dubbed “Expanding Climate Change Resilience in Northern Ghana (ECCRING).

Speaking to The Daily Dispatch in an exclusive interview, the Project Coordinator Issifu Sulemana Jobila, said the five communities, which included Zangum, Sayoo, Nayoku, Guakudow, and Guabuliga each submitted a list of 25 volunteers of diverse farming background to be trained in basic fire prevention and fire fighting skills.

Recruits passed out

Using a set of criteria involving physical strength, age, activeness, ability and commitment, all recruits according to Mr. Jobila were taken through basic military drills and tutorials by personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service in the West Mamprusi District.

He also emphasised that, the training would support and strengthen farmers’ capacities to manage and prevent all manner of wildfires considered inimical and destructive to food production particularly in the West Mamprusi District.

According to him, each of the anti-wildfire fighters was given a pair of wellington boots, one cutlass, a pair of protective hand gloves and protective clothing by the end of the training.

The Project Coordinator further mentioned that, over 2,500 people in all the five communities were equally sensitized as part of a communitywide sentisation programme on wild and domestic fire prevention. 

Meanwhile, 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. Also, 250 acres of forest plantations have been established in the communities apart from the sensitisation of over 2,500 people on how to fight wild and domestic fires.

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.