The CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana has called on the government, through the Forestry Commission, to consider partnering the Institute to conserve threatened tree species to improve sustainability.
Professor Daniel A. Ofori, Director CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, who made the call at a day’s project inception and conservation workshop at Fumesua, Kumasi, explained that, the inception workshop marked the starting point of the coordination role of CSIR-FORIG on the conservation of threatened tree species in the country.
According to him, the role of CSIR-FORIG was to assist the government in the formulation of science and technology policies for the realisation of its developmental objectives, to develop, package, and disseminate science and technology information.
He stated that, the CSIR research programmes covered a wide range of activities in the areas that included Industry, Agriculture, Forestry, Environment, Health, Natural and Social Science, hence, the importance to collaborate with the government, through Forestry Commission.
Prof. Ofori explained that, the role of CSIR-FORIG towards those areas was to encourage the co-ordinated employment of scientific research for the management, utilisation and conservation of the natural resources of Ghana in the interest of development.
He noted that to be able to achieve this, it undertakes demand-driven research, build capacity and promote the application of technologies for sustainable management of forest resources for the benefit of society.
Dr. Samuel Ayensu, from the Resource Management Support Centre, indicated that Ghana had a rich stock of diverse natural resources such as forests, water bodies, minerals, plants and animals, and as a developing economy, much of the population depends on the country’s natural resources base for livelihoods.
According to him, the Ghana Living Standards Survey Round 6 (GLSS6) estimated that biodiversity products provided alternative income sources to over six million Ghanaians in the forestry and water sectors.
He noted that forests were important sources of ecosystem goods and services across Ghana, and most of the rural population (2.5 million people) depended on the forests for their livelihood or for the provision of food, clothing, shelter, furniture, potable water and Bush meat.
According to him, despite its contribution to Ghana’s economy, the status of biodiversity is under threat as the condition of Ghana’s forests has been in decline for many years.
He stated that many forest reserves are heavily encroached and degraded and the off- reserve stocks are being rapidly depleted, saying by and large, the problem is one of gradual degradation rather than deforestation, and is incremental rather than dramatic, with no single dominant driver.
He disclosed that, in Ghana, an extensive forest estate, consisting of 1.6 million hectares of Forest reserves was gazetted in the High Forest Zone (HFZ) in the 1920s, at the time there were large areas of forests outside these gazetted forest reserves across the country.
He stressed that, over the period, significant portions of these forests have been lost or degraded and that the trend of the forest loss poses a significant threat to the livelihoods of forest fringe communities as well as ecosystem services and functionality that support Ghana’s predominantly agrarian economy.
Mr. James Amponsah, Project Manager, also expressed worry over loss of some tree species, and said five tree species have currently been identified to be under threat because of expansion of agriculture and over cultivation.
He called on the government, through Forestry Commission and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other groups and the private sector to put pragmatic measures to save the situation in order not to lose most of the tree species especially those under threat.
