By Stephen Kwabena Effah
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has asked government to give special attention to land management and farming systems to enhance regeneration to protect the country’s vegetation.
It said a study conducted by the agency to assess the long term change in land use and cover in the sub region revealed a reduction in the country’s biodiversity as a result of increased population, illegal resource exploitation, and massive conversion reserves into cocoa plantations among others.
A Principal Programme Officer of EPA, Emmanuel Tachie-Obeng, explained that as a result, the six agro-ecological zones in the country have been re-classified into 12 to reflect the current situation.
Speaking at a workshop in Accra on Friday to validate the report, he said that the study also revealed severe dwindling of water resources in the transitional zones.
He said that the ecological changes associated with the emergence of new eco zones have occasioned the need for changes in livelihood strategies of the local people.
Mr Tachie-Obeng said that the current increases in population in the ecological region due to high demand of land for agricultural activities could affect the integrity of the environ-ment.
He said the country’s natural resources would continue to suffer decline with increased population, suspension of ban on mining in forest reserves and emergence of open cast mining.
He underscored the importance of reserving and developing some of the mountain ecosystems for eco-tourism and sustainable development for the benefit of the local communities and for the purpose of environmental protection.
He said that it is also important that mechanised agriculture is incorporated in agro-forestry practices to avert further decline of the country’s vegetation.
Mr Tachie-Obeng urged government to prioritise environmental issues and consider it as one of its key policies. He recommended the provision of logistical support to natural resources and environmental management organisations to develop management models to reverse the degrading trends.
The Deputy Executive Director of EPA, Daniel Amlalo, said the country’s natural resources have suffered much decline in the past three decades due to exploitation to meet growing socio-economic needs.
“Shifting cultivation, uncontrolled logging, wild fires, surface mining, charcoal production and increasing human population have tended to place enormous pressures on the resources in the country,” he noted.
He urged the participants to come up with directions on how best the report should be packaged in a way that all levels of society could understand and appreciate the value of the environment to safeguard and manage them as productive resources.
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