UE MINISTER CALLS FOR COLLABORATION TO CHECK ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

Hon. Stephen Yakubu, the Upper East Regional Minister has called on Municipal and Districts Chief Executives (MDCEs) in the Region to collaborate with contractors, sand winners and Small Scale Miners to ensure strict adherence to laid down rules on environmental management.

That, the Minister said would help check environmental degradation in the Region which was a cause of concern to the former Member of Parliament for the Binduri Constituency.

Hon. Yakubu observed that after contractors wined sand, gravel and other materials for work, they failed to restore the vegetation cover, and said to ensure contractors restored the vegetation at their construction sites, final certificates would only be signed after the environment was restored.

Hon. Yakubu was speaking at the third Local Steering Committee Meeting of the Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small Scale Miners Project in Bolgatanga.

“Sand winning is another major problem and in Paga, people from the neighbouring countries fetch sand but fail to cover the pit, and in the process, destroy the environment.

“We should not allow that as DCEs. If we do our work well, people would not come into our Districts and degrade the environment,” he said.

The Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small Scale Mining Project (GLRSSMP) with UD$100 million was a six year multi-sectoral project launched in February 2022 to strengthen integrated natural resources management and to restore specific target landscape within the Savannah and Cocoa Forest areas in the country.

The Regional Minister who played host to other four Northern Regions which were the ultimate beneficiaries of the project, said the Northern Regions were predominantly rural areas, and constantly confronted with devastating effects of climate change which had largely contributed to land degradation and threat of desertification.

He, therefore, called on all stakeholders in the implementation process to give off their best, adding that “The success of this project is critical to us, as it seeks to make sustainable natural resources management an integral component of land management practices.”

Mr. Asher Nkegbe, the Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said land degradation affected 20 to 40 percent of the world’s land area and affected the welfare of about 3.2 billion people.

He said there was the need for urgent action to secure food and water resources hence Ghana’s commitment to the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN).

He said about 5 million hectares of land had been committed to restoration under the project which would contribute to achieving Ghana’s LDN targets and ensured multiple benefits were delivered by 2030.

Mr. Nkegbe said the implementing agents of the project included the Regional Coordinating Councils, Municipal and District Assemblies, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Forest Services Division and the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission.

The rest are the Water Resources Commission, the Forest Research Institute of Ghana and Members of the Technical Coordination Office (TCO).