The Kpembe Traditional Council led by Kpembewura Banbagne Ndefeso IV has declared 2023 as an action year to fight climate change-related activities in the Kpembe traditional area.
Activities such as illegal charcoal burning and felling of trees for fuel, wood among others have been identified as threats to the environment.
Millions of trees are lost annually to these activities, thereby depleting the forest cover.
Empty forest, dying river bodies, soil infertility and low crop yield are some of the impacts of these activities.
Despite investing billions of dollars globally in the fight against climate change and its related activities, the situation still lingers on.
In Ghana where these acts are heavily executed, traditional authorities are often blamed.
It is on the back of this that the Kpembe Traditional Council in the East Gonja Municipality of the Savannah Region led by Kpembewura Banbagne Ndefeso IV and other stakeholders like Choice Ghana are championing a climate change campaign for the year 2023.
“If you go to the south, galamsey is their bane just as illegal logging, commercial charcoal burning, uncontrollable bush fires and other bad agronomic practices are ours here and we need to aggressively tackle it.
“As a traditional area, we are poised to ending the menace of illegal harvesting of wood as well as commercial charcoal burning to keep our forest and environment and we will punish offenders,” Kpembewura stressed.
He appealed to other traditional areas in the northern enclave especially the newly created Savannah and North East regions to show keen interest in climate change related activities.
“We traditional authorities have always been at the receiving end for fueling these activities and its about time we demystify this misconception.”
Executive Director at Choice Ghana Mohammed Seidu though happy about the pronouncement of the traditional council, indicated the efforts will be fruitless without proper stakeholder engagement.
“Our chiefs have a greater responsibility of proving themselves as truly fighting the menace as the devastation of climate change is serious.
“For me, I think it is about time we do more advocacy on government’s tree planting policy to keep our environment.”
From 2002 to 2021, Ghana lost 112 hectares of humid primary forest, making up 8.2% of its total tree cover loss in the same time period.
Total area of humid primary forest within the same period also decreased by 10%.
In 2018, the national annual charcoal production in Ghana was estimated at one million, one hundred thousand tonnes which is equal to 15.7 million metric round wood equivalent.
Sustainable Development Goal 13 aims to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact”.
By Christopher Amoako|3news.com|Ghana