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| Tree plants prepared for planting |
Arguably, nearly all the causative factors of negative
climate change effects and environmental degradation in many parts of Northern
Ghana are human induced. Talk of bush burning, indiscriminate felling of trees,
charcoal production, overgrazing by ruminants and bad farming practices among
others, and the results are too glaring for everyone to see.
The 1952 Forest Inventory Record of Ghana indicates
that the total tree cover of the three regions of the North was 41,600 kilometres
square, representing 46% of the total land area of the entire North.
However,
by 1996 approximately 40% of the woodland was estimated to have been exposed to
acute soil erosion and other human activities, meaning that about 38,000
hectares of tree cover are lost yearly in the three regions.
Thus, one
wonders why some residents of the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions
of Ghana are refusing to come to terms with the fact that, their persistent
abuse of the natural environment is negatively affecting their sources of
livelihoods.
Luckily however,
the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has in recent years initiated a
recovery operation aimed at assisting over 400,000 people in these regions, who
have been badly hit by recurrent floods, droughts and rising food prices in
domestic markets.
Most of these people are
participating in what WFP call “food-for-work”
–a programme that supports the re-construction
of vital community infrastructure such as desilting of dug-outs and
creation of forest plantations through beneficiaries as source of labour and
giving them (beneficiaries) food rations after engaging them to do the work.
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| A woman cooking her share of the WFP food ration |
Recently
the WFP according to Nasigri Mahamadu, Assistant Manager in charge of Operations
at the Walewale Forestry Services Division of the Forestry Commission, presented
a total of 75 bags of white beans, 746 bags of white maize, 500 gallons of
edible oil and 15 bags of iodated salt to 13 communities in the West Mamprusi,
Mamprugu Moaduri and Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo Districts in the Northern Region.
The
beneficiaries, he noted, include Mishio, Moshefongu/Walewale and Zua in the
West Mamprusi District; Tantala and Daboseisi in Mamprugu Moaduri District as
well as Jinlik number 1, Jinlik number 2, Yunyoo, Gbetmumpaak, Kauk, Namongo
and Chintilung in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District.
Mr.
Nasigri told Savannahnews in an interview, that the donation, which
was the second in 2013 with the same quantity as the first one presented in
early April/May, was in line with the food-for-work initiative implemented by
WFP and supported also by the Forestry Services Division. A total of 323
residents comprising of 173 men and 150 women in all 13 communities benefited
from the food ration, he disclosed.
According to Mr. Nasigri, a total of 323 hectares of
forest plantations had also been created across all communities in the three
districts, adding that, trees planted included cashew, moringa, acacia, teak,
ceiba, eucalyptus, neem, grafted mangoes and mahogany for the purposes of
medicine, woodlot for fuel wood, local building construction, food and income
as well as carbon sequestration and desertification control.
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