ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP ENDS AT WA (PAGE 40)

Story: George Folley Quaye, Wa

THE Deputy Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, Mr Maxwell Kofi Jumah, has charged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to adopt a multifaceted approach in their quest to improve on indigenous and modern practices that support land and water management.
He has, therefore, stressed the need for the EPA and the other major stakeholders to tap the expertise of local communities, groups and other relevant bodies to come up with effective policies and programmes to improve on the management of land and water bodies.
Mr Jumah gave the advice at a day’s workshop organised for policy makers and other institutions on the implementation of the Ghana Environmental Management Project (GEMP) in Wa in the Upper West Region.
It was to empower local communities and other relevant institutions to work towards reversing the issues of desertification and land degradation, particularly in the three northern regions.
According to Mr Jumah, the successful implementation of the project lay on the seriousness of the EPA.
“The EPA is, therefore, expected to improve on the legislation on land uses, as well as offering advice on desertification and sustainable land and water management practices to rural communities,” the deputy minister stressed.
Mr Jumah said the total collaboration between the EPA and its sister organisations would put them in a good stead to be able to deal with the issue of desertification.
In that regard, he said, the EPA must work together with the local government ministry to transform and strengthen the district management committees into statutory committees to make them more effective at the local levels.
Mr Jumah also urged people to join hands with the EPA and its partner organisations to come up with solutions to address the problems of desertification, and land and water management.
The Executive Director of the EPA, Mr Jonathan Allotey, in a speech read on his behalf, touched on the serious effects land degradation had on food production on the continent, saying that the gross annual income for Africa due to land degradation was estimated at $9 billion.
“In Ghana for instance, the cost of environmental degradation is about GH¢475 million per year. This is 5.5 per cent of the nation’s GDP,” he said.
Mr Allotey stated that the government was doing its best through effective partnership with international organisations, to find a lasting solution to the practice.
He said the measures were yet to yield the required results hence the need to involve the local people to sensitise their colleagues to appreciate the extent of damage they caused to the environment.
The Upper West Regional Minister, Mr George Hickah Benson, catalogued some of the effects desertification had had on both mankind and livestock in the region, such as lack of fodder and fertility of the soil.
He said desertification had brought a lot of hardships on the people in the region,
The regional minister, therefore, expressed the commitment of his office in ensuring the successful implementation of the project.