The Ghanaian government will embark on an initiative to restore degraded forests across the country through massive tree planting, an official said Tuesday.
Hugh Brown, acting chief executive officer of Ghana’s Forestry Commission, said during an awareness creation program in the Ghanaian capital of Accra that the West African country’s forests need urgent attention.
He enumerated the benefits of forests to every human community and the global ecosystem, including hosting different foodstuffs, fruits, medicinal and industrial plants, and water bodies.
Brown lamented the degradation of these forests caused by bushfires, poaching, unconventional farming methods, illegal lumbering, and illegal mining. “There is the urgent need to protect the forests in the country to continually play their important roles in human life,” he said.
The official said Ghana will launch a transformational landscape restoration project to heal and harness the environment through tree planting. “The youth of this country will be on board to execute this project.”
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Ghana has about 7.9 million hectares of forested land, constituting 35 percent of the total land area.
In recent years, the Ghanaian government has been undertaking annual tree-planting activities to restore the lost forest cover, while partnering with private plantation farmers to increase their activities in the country. Enditem
Source: Xinhua
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