Yilo NADMO to Collaborate With Forestry Commission To Plant More Than 1000 Trees.

Global forest resources continue to dwindle. Worldwide deforestation continues at an alarming rate: 7 million hectares of forest are destroyed every year.

On March 1, 2019, the United Nations issued a global ‘call to action’ to mobilize the political and financial support necessary to restore the world’s deforested and degraded ecosystems over the coming decade to support the well being of 3.2 billion people around the globe.

Mr Michael Jackson Bruku, the Natural Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) coordinator for Yilo Krobo Municipality speaking on Rite Morning Ride with Austin Ofori Addo said the call to action emphasized scaling-up of restoration work to address the severe degradation of landscapes, including wetlands and aquatic ecosystems, worldwide.

According to him, this has necessitated the collaboration between his outfit and the Forestry Commission to plant more than 1000 trees at Yilo Krobo Municipality in the Eastern Region to regulate the menace of global warming and climate change.

Adding that every single tree planted will be left in the hands of the community leaders, community members, school children and heads of schools who are made to understand the repercussions of deforestation. This is to boost landscape restoration which is on top of national agendas and also build on public demand for action on issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and the resulting impacts on economies and livelihoods.

Mr Michael Jackson Bruku revealed that, according to the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, in developing countries like Ghana, forest area accounts for about 40% of the total national land and provides livelihood for more than 2.5 million people yet human activities and high levels of exploitation continue to accelerate deforestation, this call to action couldn’t be any better – especially in the race to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The NADMO coordinator further called on the president of the land Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo Addo and other global leaders to consider the climate crisis as the most defining challenge of our time and a war that must be won through the reconciling of humanity and nature.
According him, Forestry experts have cautioned that Ghana’s forests could be depleted in the next decade if care is not taken and prudent measures are not deployed to check the crisis rate of deforestation.

“We can’t continue to lose our trees as people. Nothing happens by not doing anything. We must take deliberate steps to help avert the impending climate danger, this is not something we can pray away because the good Lord provided us the trees to play strategic roles but we have decided for our own parochial interest to destroy them and so will pay the price if we do not restore,” he told.

Natural Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) officer again hinted that the initiative will reduce the rate of natural disasters in the municipality. The Government has employed nearly 20,000 people to plant 10 million trees across the country to increase climate resilience towards achieving the sustainable development agenda.

Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, who announced this at the opening of a high-level session of the Africa Climate Week (ACW) in Accra on Wednesday, said the tree planting exercise was part of the many programmes being pursued by the Government to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.

He said the ACW would help stakeholders in the public and private sectors to firm up actions for securing international financing to complement efforts by developing countries to combat debilitating effects of climate change.

“Ghana is convinced that its pursuit of climate tangible development can unlock real investment opportunities for the greater good for its sustainable development agenda,” Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said.

The five-day event is on the theme: “Climate Action in Africa: A Race We Can Win,” organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in collaboration with the Government of Ghana and United Nations Development Progamme (UNDP).

It brought together diverse actors from the public and private sectors across the globe.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said investing in climate actions had high direct development benefits and strong climate objectives, which had led to an annual emission reduction of two million tonnes of greenhouse gases.

By: Austin Ofori Addo/ritefmonline.org/austinofori.addo@gmail.com