The scorecard on the performance of the recently planted trees under the ‘Green Ghana’ project as presented by the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) is good tidings.
Surviving tree seedlings which stand at 85% so far have passed the critical period and would all things being equal grow into trees.
It would be instructive to find out why those which did not survive suffered their fate. We can conjecture that those which did not make it simply suffered neglect.
A few days after the planting exercise, reports had it that in some parts of the country the seedlings were not protected adequately and so wandering domestic ruminants pounced on them.
Now that 20 million tree seedlings are being earmarked for planting next year, the lessons learnt from this year’s exercise should be brought to bear upon the task. This way the lost seedlings would be relatively lower that it was reported by the NIB.
The role of trees in securing healthy environment cannot be disregarded. The world has never been so rudely awoken to the fallouts of the irresponsible felling of trees.
‘Our trees, our lives’ is an apt theme for our environmental reawakening, the strongest yet in our history.
It is our position that a different template be applied in next year’s project which from the numbers would be a more ambitious enterprise than its predecessor.
Our MMDAs should be tasked to cater for the seedlings and marks awarded for their performance in this regard.
It is ironic that even as we strive to green the country so we can derive the motley dividends from the efforts, we have abandoned our ornamental plants which used to line up the medians of both ceremonial streets and our urban roundabouts.
Let us show our seriousness in greening the country by turning our attention also to the dead green grass and ornamental plants on our streets.
These plants while they depend upon the raining season to get the water they need to survive since nobody waters them are also often trampled upon by pedestrians.
It is unfathomable why public funds would be expended in planning green grass and ornamental plants yet these are left at the mercy of the raining season which comes but once in a year.
We pointed out in an earlier commentary about the importance of revamping the neglected Department of Parks & Gardens to play its mandated role in beautifying our country through plants and flowers.
We can hardly identify parks in our urban settings these days anyway.
Planting trees as our medians feature brownish green grass and wilted ornamental trees does not present us as serious and sincere about the project we have set ourselves to do.