The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has on Friday, 7th June 2024, launched the 2024 edition of the Green Ghana Day at a commemorative tree planting event at the Burma Camp in Accra with the target to plant a record ten million tree seedlings across the country. 

The project, since its inception, has been an action-driven approach to augment government’s aggressive afforestation and reforestation programme to the restore lost forest cover of Ghana and to contribute to the global effort to fight climate change. 

The maiden edition of the programme saw 7 million tree seedlings planted, thus exceeding by far the initial target of 5 million. In 2022, 24 million trees, out of a targeted twenty million were verified to have been planted, with a survival rate of 72 percent, whereas, last year witnessed 10.7 million seedlings out of a targeted 10 million planted with a survival rate of 81 percent. 

Speaking at the launch, President Akufo-Addo said the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss are being exacerbated even further by deforestation, desertification, and land and soil degradation, with climate change remaining the most urgent and posing a great threat to lives and livelihoods. 

According to him, the sad story of South Sudan being forced to close its schools, due to extreme heat waves and the horn of Africa becoming uninhabitable in the coming years due to these severe weather conditions, are present day effects of climate change. 

“The impact of the other crisis is equally alarming. According to the World Health Organisation, air pollution is responsible for some 6.7 million deaths annually, with 9 out of 10 people worldwide breathing air that contains pollutants, above the WHO's recommended levels. 

Similarly, the loss of biodiversity possesses a significant threat to our planet, with the decline and extinction of animals, plants and ecosystems, leading to disasters, diseases and deaths,” he added. 

Touching on a critical role of forests in sustaining life on earth, he revealed that, “here in Ghana for example, activities related to agriculture, forest and land use contributes some fifty percent of our national greenhouse gas emissions, therefore preserving our forest and adapting sustainable agriculture and land use practices have a high potential to combat climate change through carbon sequestration.”

He added that, “beyond the environmental benefits, forests are essential natural resources for our socioeconomic development, especially in developing countries like ours, providing livelihoods for the majority of our population.” 

With serious implications for food security, sustainable communities and national development, the President noted with angst the severity of the threat that the world’s forests face, as the tropical primary forest lost in 2023 alone totaled 3.7 million hectares.

“Although we Africans are amongst the least contributors to the climate crisis, our continent of Africa suffers the most from its adverse consequences. We in Ghana have committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by sixty-four million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030 and enhancing our resilience and adaptation to climate change in accordance with our enhanced national determined contributions.” he stated.

It is furtherance of these goals that at the 28th session of the Conference of Parties, COP 28, of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates last year, we launched the Resilient Ghana Country Package.

The initiative aims to advance nature-based industrialization and sustainable rural development, build an inclusive green country economy, with future fit green jobs and nature based alternative livelihoods and scale up our climate ambition. 

Minister of Lands and Natural Resources and Member of Parliament of Damongo, Samuel Abu Jinapor, touched on some of Ghana’s activities that are heavily complementing global efforts against climate change. 

To demonstrate the commitment to these global efforts, the Minister pointed out that, Ghana is implementing several policies and programmes aimed at protecting our forest cover and restoring lost ones which includes the ban on the issuance of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora, the Introduction of Solar Powered Wood Tracking System and electronic property marks, the Implementation of the Ghana Forest Plantation Strategy, the Forest Investment Programme, the Ghana REDD Strategy, the National Alternative Employment and Livelihood Programme, the Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small-Scale Mining Project, the Cocoa and Forest Initiative and the Green Street Project. 

He told the gathering that, these initiatives are yielding results as Ghana last year became one of few countries alongside Columbia and Brazil, to record a decrease in deforestation, adding that “our forests and nature-based climate efforts have indeed gained global recognition.”

Sompaonline.com/Nana Yaw Boamah