The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has revealed plans of the Government of Ghana to attract investment in economic trees, as part of efforts to restore the country’s forest cover.
At a meeting held with the London Staff of the Forestry Commission, Mr. Jinapor mentioned that a memorandum has been prepared to be submitted to cabinet for consideration “to spell out a plan and strategy to restore the forest cover”.
Part of the requirement of the memorandum was for the cabinet to devise means to attract investors for plantations, “especially plantation for economic trees”.
This became necessary when the forest which was contributing some 30% to climate change reduction, and was fetching some export value of 169 million dollars as of 2019, was lost to illegal wood harvesting and illegal mining among other activities which were destroying the ecosystem.
That said, it is estimated that some ten million hectares (10,000,000ha) of the world’s primary tropical forest was lost in 2020 alone.
Government acting to restore the forest cover, initiated the Green Ghana Day where on June 11, 2021, the day set aside for planting of trees nationwide, some 7,000,000 trees were planted to augment the forest aggregate.
At the meeting held in Glasgow, Scotland, to sign Ghana on to the Lowering Emissions and Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, the Minister noted that government is poised to plant some twenty million (20,000,000) more trees in 2022.
This is in addition to the tightening of ban already in place on the illegal harvesting, transporting and exporting of rare species like the Rosewood which takes about 100 years to grow, as indicated by the Chief Director of the Lands and Natural Resources, Professor Patrick Agbesinyale in a communique dated January 21, 2021.
All the efforts notwithstanding, Mr. Jinapor noted that there is the need for a partnership between the private sector and the government in ensuring that growing of the economic trees is sustained.
He however revealed that while at the Conference of Parties (COP26) meeting over talks on climate change and how to address the global challenge, he interacted with investors who showed interest in the initiative.
There is more in his conversation with the London Staff of the Forestry Commission below:
