HISTORIC FOREST DISAPPEARS IN THE UPPER EAST Edward Adeti, Kazigo, Upper East One of the prized forests in the Upper East Region where indigenes once sought asylum from slave-grabbing colonial masters centuries ago has disappeared. History has it that the Savannah forest bore some wild trees with cave-deep openings in the stems and roots where indigenes hounded by chain-bearing slave hunters in those days often took cover and thus escaped being shipped overseas into slavery. The woodland was also packed with lions, wolves, leopards and deer among other wild animals. It took indiscriminate felling of trees and uncontrolled bush burning for the forest to vanish with time. Traditional authorities at Kazigo, where the forest once stood, told the Daily Dispatch the inhabitants of the area depleted the forest in ignorance. Founded in the sixteenth century, Kazigo lies today in the eastern zone of the Kassena-Nankana West District. The forest could have turned into a tourist sanctuary, generating foreign exchange today if it had been conserved like the globally known Paga Crocodile Pond which is found in the same district. “The environmental degradation in Buru-Kazigo,” said the Chief of Kazigo, Pe Parekuri Thomas Asangchara Aluah, “stemmed from ignorance and poverty as a result of late start of formal education in the area. The first primary school in Kazigo was opened in 2000, just 15 years left for Ghana to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of education for all.” Whilst the community mourns the irredeemable loss suffered through the alleged ignorance, the disappearance of the forest has also unleashed a heavy toll of Climate Change in the area. Rains fall erratically and dams dry up around the middle of the dry season― strangling farming potentials in the community and leaving scores, including animals, extremely thirsty. In a bid to restore the lost forest, the Chief has initiated a reforestation project. The project has attracted support from the Government of Canada, and is being implemented by the Student and Youth Travel Organisation (SYTO) and the Canada World Youth (CWY). So far, more than 40,000 seedlings have been planted out of which more than 35,000 are said to have survived. “I wish to thank the management of the Canada World Youth for the livelihood empowerment project which has made some of the youth and women to own sheep and goats. The 50 animals bought for 25 people have now increased to 82 animals in just one year,” Pe Parekuri Thomas Asangchara Aluah added during an inspection tour of the project by donor partners. The Programme Manager for the Canada World Youth, Anne-Marie Joy Henry, who was in Ghana to inspect the reforestation project, advised Africans to focus on sustainable local initiatives to help address deforestation. “Keep doing what you’re doing: making local initiatives, keeping committed and finding ways to make it sustainable. Deforestation is something that happens globally. But it’s also something that has been changing in Africa. I’m not an expert on Climate Change but I have seen its impact on water levels and water tables here in Tanzania and in Kenya. Even when I was flying by Kilimanjaro, there was no snow on the top of the mountain. Years ago, we never had the problem of water dissipating,” Anne-Marie Joy Henry told the Daily Dispatch. “We can look to the late Wangari Matai who is a Nobel Prize winner. She comes from Africa, from Kenya. So, the answers and the solutions are here. We don’t need to be from Canada, from away, to bring our solutions. The people here already have the solutions. For example, small projects like this one, where a community is planting trees, making a commitment towards reforestation within their homes. It’s making a change. The people who are here are making a change. It doesn’t have to come from abroad,” she stressed.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 12:00:00 +0000
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