As political parties in Ghana prepare feverishly ahead of the conduct of the 2024 elections and are finalizing their manifestos, the Forum for Natural Regeneration (FORNAR), is urging the two main political parties in the country to do as a matter of necessity, include Natural Regeneration in their manifestos to tackle issues of deforestation.
According to the FONAR, the two political parties in their policy directions should consider issues of the environment. In the case of the New Patriotic Party, they have recently pledged to “Update and strengthen the National Environmental Protection Programme and Environmental Action Plan”.
At the same time, the National Democratic Congress looks to “Integrate environmental considerations with social, Political and Economic Justice” in addressing the needs and rights of all communities, sectors, and individuals, “transform waste into value to ensure a clean Ghana and create jobs by converting waste into energy” as well as ensure gender mainstreaming in environmental issues.
However, the Forum believes these political parties do not often translate these pledges into more practical actions to tackle local and global climate issues, thus, the engagement.
The essence of the engagement which forms part of scaling up Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) in Northern Ghana for Desertification and Drought Resilience is to get Political parties to prioritize issues of the environment.
Available data suggests that 13% of Ghana’s population is affected by drought, especially in Northern Ghana, with the country losing an estimated 95 million dollars to drought.
With deforestation affecting over 315,000 hectares of farmland per year, Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration is considered a more viable option to ensure a sustainable environment.
FMNR is the Systematic regeneration, management, and maintenance of farmer-selected trees and shrubs: living stumps, root sprouts, or seeds that already exist in the soil; it is characterized as a low-cost, simple way for farmers to increase the number of trees interplanted with annual crops in the fields.
This strategy has been implemented over the years by FONAR in collaboration with World Vision Ghana and between 2009 and 2020, 750 hectares of degraded lands were restored in 57 communities in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region.
Speaking to the media as part of the engagement with political parties with support from AwakenTrees held on World Environment Day under the theme; “Land Restoration, Desertification and Drought Resilience,” the Executive Director of FONAR, Sumaila Seidu Saaka, explained that Political parties need to incorporate natural regeneration into their manifestos, especially at a time the country is exploring ways to restore degraded lands due to illegal mining.
“We are in the election season, political parties are trying to frame up their manifestos and we think that it is important for us to engage political parties to include FMNR in their manifestos when it comes to environmental restoration.
The focus has always been on tree planting but tree planting is a lot more difficult in Northern Ghana because of little rain. If you go around our communities you will see that the shrubs are already sprouting and we can take advantage to regenerate these trees. So, we are calling on the political parties that in engaging their party structures, they should consider natural regeneration to protect the environment especially as they look at reclaiming degraded lands due to galamsey.” He urged.
The Upper East Regional Secretary of the NDC Donatus Akamukre, described the engagement as an eye-opener.
“We will want to thank the organizers because the content is so rich and if look at the FMNR approach, I think it is good if not better than tree planting. I will suggest that we incorporate it in our efforts to green the country and will equally push to have this part of our manifesto. We have policies on tree planting but this has been missing and may prove superior to what we have been doing.” He stated
