Minister urges Ghanaians to support afforestation programme

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has called on Ghanaians to support the government’s afforestation programme to restore the country’s lost forest cover.

He said the government’s efforts to plant at least 20 million trees this year, under the Green Ghana Project, would not be successful without the input of Ghanaians.

In an interview on GTV which was monitored by the Ghanaian Times, in Accra, yesterday, Mr Jinapor bemoaned the continuous depletion of Ghana’s forests without corresponding effort to restore the forest.

The Green Ghana Project, the ban on harvesting and export of Rosewood, and the ban on commercial production of charcoal in parts of the country, he said, were policies by the government aimed at restoring the forest cover.

Describing illegal mining as a major contributor to the loss of forest, he said the government would not relent in its efforts to sanitize land and the natural resource sector through appropriate policies and regulations.

In the meantime, the designation of water bodies and forest reserves as Red Zones for mining, the ban on reconnaissance, prospecting, or exploration for minerals in Forest Reserves, the introduction of Operation Halt II, the tracking of earthmoving equipment and machines for mining have helped in tackling illegal mining, the minister said.

He said that the Regional, Municipal and District Security Councils have been tasked to lead the fight against illegal mining.

Mr Jinapor said the government was investing in technology at the Lands Commission, to promote proper land administration.

The investment, he noted, had led to technological reforms in its services, online searches and the introduction of composite search to replace the searches at the different divisions of the commission.