By
Eunice Hilda Ampomah, GNA
Accra, Dec. 12, GNA
– To redress deforestation problems in cocoa, oil palm and rubber landscapes,
the Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA), in partnership with the Forestry Commission
has engaged stakeholders on how to fuel implementation of the Ghana Cocoa
Forest REDD+ Programme (GCFRP).
The Ghana Cocoa
Forest REDD+ Programme, is a strategy set by government to reduce emissions
from deforestation and forest degradation over the next 20 years, whilst at the
same time addressing threats that undermine ecosystem services and
environmental integrity.
The strategy
believes in building resilient landscapes and livelihoods, therefore,
highlights the profits of non-carbon benefits such as improved forest
governance.
Mr Joseph Lumumba,
the Africa Regional Coordinator, TFA, said even though there were various
commitments by individual bodies to tackle problems of deforestation in the
landscapes, the canker was still left unsolved because it needed a collective
effort on the part of stakeholders.
The objective of the
workshop, he said, was therefore to drive collective action to accelerate
implementation of GCFRP especially in the areas of design and architecture by
mobilising the private sector to deliberate for sustainable solutions.
Mr Lumumba called on
government to facilitate the engagement of the private sector to support the
implementation of the programme and redirect some extension programmes to
landscapes within their jurisdictions.
Mr Raymond Kofi
Sakyi, a representative from the Climate Change Directorate, Forestry
Commission, said over the years, the country had experienced environmental
depletion activities such as logging, mining, and agricultural expansion in the
cocoa, oil palm and rubber landscape, that negatively affected the environment.
“Many farmers also
don’t carry out cocoa smart farm practices and expand cocoa production into
forest reserves, which had led to a drastic drop in cocoa yielding.”
A more intensive
implementation of the GCFRP, would thus, help to stop the expansion of cocoa
into forest reserves and increase cocoa yield on same piece of land, he noted.
Mr Sakyi said the
Forestry Commission had also undertaken interventions such as establishing
plantation in degraded forest reserves and ‘Youth in Afforestation’ programmes
to control the canker.
He recommended that
interventions like planting shade trees in farms, enriching planting,
introducing climate smart production systems, rehabilitating forest reserves
and enforcing laws governing forest reserves be employed to develop the sector.
On the
implementation frameworks, he suggested that sector agencies and developmental
partners adopt strategies like reinforced governance, carbon accounting
especially to donor agencies, monitoring of national forest by concerned
agencies and adopting of feedback and grievance redress mechanisms.
Mr Kwabena Twumasi,
Technical Advisor, GIZ, said the GIZ was implementing a project called,
“Forestry Landscape Restoration through a Sustainable Wood Energy Value Chain,”
to reduce the pressures put on forest reserves.
Under the project,
the GIZ sought to rehabilitate degraded forests and reduce demand on forest
especially by charcoal producers by giving them alternate sources like woodlots
to produce charcoal.
It also introduced
improved cook stoves that uses less quantity of charcoal as another intervention
to protect forest reserves, he said.
The project partners
are the Ministry of Energy, the Forestry Commission, the Energy Commission, the
Environmental Protection Agency, and the IUCN Netherlands.
The workshop was
attended by stakeholders from cocoa and palm oil production and donor
institutions like GIZ, Africa Development Bank, Olam Ghana, Wilmar Africa,
SIAT, UNDP, and Forestry Commission.
GNA
