Green Ghana not a partisan project – Jinapor

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel A. Jinapor, has charged Ghanaians to consider the Green Ghana Project, slated for June 10, 2022 as a National agenda and not a partisan one.

In this regard, he has applauded the Ex-President John Dramani Mahama for consenting to plant with government and the Ministry come Friday, June 10.

The Minister stressed that "we have a serious crisis on our hands and we must come together to make this work. The point where we are required that we stop global warming, or else within a short time we will soon live in an unsustainable globe and this will impact negatively on our agriculture and everything that the weather affects".

The Minister made this hearty appeal when he appeared on Wednesday, 8th June, 2022 while speaking on Green Ghana and other matters regarding the planting exercise and how it affects the environment.

In his submission, the Minister expounded on the two-pronged approach adopted by government to achieve this agenda while encouraging all and sundry to focus more on the growth of the plant and not just the plating. "the biggest scheme does not have to do with the planting itself but the survival rate and so we should not only plant that we also have to focus the nurturing and growth of the trees we plant.

He continued that with a good number of lessons learnt from last year experience, better strategies have been put in place to achieve the ambitious target of 20 million tree seedlings.

The Sector Minister said all 20 million seedlings are ready to be planted while disclosing some of the pickup points for the seedlings and gave out contacts people can call to know where to go for their seedlings. "You can pick up your seedlings from the various offices of the Forestry Commission, District Assemblies, Malls, and on the streets and the numbers to call are 0244643780, 0249227796 and 0208290797.”

He also mentioned some of the seedlings available for planting saying, “we have coconut, mango, Avocado/Pear, tangerine, orange and ornamental plants just to mention a few".

The Minister also made a clarion call, notifying that the ministry has been working around the clock to make all logistics available and the only thing needed now is for Ghanaians and residents of Ghana to come out and plant. We cannot do this without you," he pleaded.

He noted that the President will start the trend of planting at the Efua Sutherland Children's Park and others will follow, naming Vice President Dr Bawumia, Ex-president Kuffor, Ex-President John Mahama, The Clergy, traditional leaders, the Chief Imam among other key personalities.

The Minister further stated that as the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources he will be planting with the British High Commission and British citizens of the Achimota Forest and by this he reiterated and stressed that "we are fully committed to protecting the Achimota Forest."

"The thing about Achimota forest is that we have invested so much in the forest and we can’t afford to lose all that and, therefore, we willing to restore all that with your help," he added.

On mines, Mr Jinapor assured that the Ministry is doing all in its power to "pursue until we win this fight against illegal mining, commonly known as galamsey," he pointed out.

At a separate media interaction, the Lands and Natural Resources Minister said the government is coming up with a policy which is anchored on two pillars is halting deforestation spearheaded by some of the measures we put in place for example, the ban on the harvesting, trading, export of rosewood.

He said it is one of those interventions that the Ministry have made, and are currently working to tackle Small Scale mining so that the forest cover of the country does not get depleted.

He continued that they are also working fervently on ensuring that other drivers of deforestation are brought under control by encouraging exploitation of the forest resources to be done sustainably.

"And then there is a second strategy which is engaging in aggressive afforestation/ reforestation and which is what has brought about Green Ghana Day which we targeted last year to plant 5 million seedlings we ended up planting 7 million seedlings. The report I have is that 80% of those seedlings we planted have survived and we are hopeful to get better results this year," he added.