user = "newswires"; The Forestry Commission has as its main mandate to manage the forestry resources in Ghana. These forests and their trees keep the soil fertile and with so much of deforestation, the soil corrosions probabilities also increase manifold. The information will then be used in the planning resources to ensure that the forest resources are there for future generations. Professor Acheampong is positive the success of this project could contribute to the increased cocoa yields because as part of the project farmers are taught the need to keep canopy crops in the cocoa farms. Yakubu Mohammed, Head of Geo-Information Unit at RMSC-Forestry Commission and Principal Investigator for Forests 2020 Project. Going round, the team observed that though cocoa thrives well under forest canopy, most of the cocoa in the project areas were now grown under monoculture where there is no canopy. Send your news stories to document.write(user + '@' + site + ''); And from cocoa in Ghana to palm oil in Indonesia, now companies … Over 80 representatives from Asunafo North Municipality, Asunafo South and Asutifi North Districts in the Ahafo Region, which have been designated as the Asunafo- Asutifi Hotspot Intervention Area (HIA) attended the workshop. Besides, medicinal trees are also there in the rice and diverse jungle areas due to which it becomes more prone to deforestation. Moreover, nearly half the country was covered with forests, which included 680 species of trees and several varieties of mahoganies. I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor) The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has permitted the commencement of a project worth 54.5 million US dollars to tackle the alarming rate of deforestation and forest degradation challenges in the Northern Savannah Zone of Ghana. All rights reserved. In 2019, the two countries banded together to set standard prices for cocoa at a minimum of $2,600 per ton with an additional “living income” of $400 per ton for farmers. site = "ghanaweb.com"; More than two years since the cocoa industry signed the ground-breaking Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI) with the governments of Ghana and Côte D’Ivoire, deforestation-free chocolate is still elusive, according to new research from the NGO Mighty Earth and by Lumina Intelligence. document.write(''); It was a collaboration between UK Space Agency who are the funders, through an organization in the UK called the Ecometrica Limited. He mentioned ageing farmer population, ageing cocoa farms, land tenure issues, low involvement of the youth in cocoa production, excessive hunting, pollution of water bodies, illegal logging and farming in forest reserves, as some of the challenges facing cocoa production in the area. Dr. Addo Danso advocated for improved law enforcement by the Forestry Commission and other law enforcement agencies to reduce the impact of illegal activities in the forest to sustain key ecological, cultural and historical habitats. Some of the community leaders explained it was the first time they had seen such an exercise take place which was accompanied by explanations for their understanding. The first quarter of 2020 … Community members gathered took turns to either confirm or deny the content of what the earth observation technologies had produced. He said FC was working closely with all key stakeholders to address challenges in the sector to sustain the country’s forest. Though we hear the forest is being depleted, we now understand how serious it is after this exercise,” Chief of Ntonsue, revealed, “We will however plead that you continue updating us so that those who come before us will understand the situation as well.”, Another chief, Nana Kwadwo Adjei, Chief of Wansampo in the Sefwi Akontommira district of the Western North Region, said, “We are grateful for this Map they have shown us and the education they have given us. It was also to share and discuss outcomes of a study on socio–economic and ecological assessment of the Asunafo- Asutifi cocoa production area for clear understanding of risks, issues, challenges and opportunities for the development of a sustainable cocoa production landscape. At least at the rate at which the climate is changing, the project can slow it.”. Chat with us via WhatsApp on +233 55 2699 625. The team revealed plans to erect bigger frames of the mapped forest in these visited communities. The forestry commission is expected to continue with the project after it ends. Annual cocoa production consistently for about five years now keeps declining, and this is partly explained as the reduced shady trees in the cocoa farms. “We have learnt so much from it, we have had training because five years back we didn’t have the skill to tease out commodity crops from natural forests, and anytime we generated a map we lumped up the natural forest and the tree crops. This project was meant for three years which ends this year but due to the impact of the corona virus, it has been extended till March, 2021, within which period, they must finalize the outputs. of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Some of these communities engaged had by settlement encroached some parts of the forest reserves among other reasons. Professor Emmanuel Acheampong, Head of Department, Silviculture and Forest Management of the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources at KNUST is project team leader. One of the many critical things the project revealed was the continuous wild encroachment of the forest reserves. They met with community leaders, opinion leaders, assembly members and residents of communities in these communities and displayed the map to them. The reason Laos made it to this list if the excessive logging in the country which is existing since 1980s. Brazil's Soy Moratorium in 2006 became the first zero-deforestation agreement. Led by Ecometrica, Forests 2020 brings together some of the UK’s leading experts on forest monitoring with local experts in Indonesia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Belize, Ghana and Kenya to deliver accurate, up-to-date deforestation data generated from satellites to … For example, 75% includes only areas with more than 75% tree cover, whereas 10% includes all areas with more than 10% tree cover. Now we have the skill so every year we can reproduce this map and look at where encroachments are taking place”. Brazil’s deforestation is exploding—and 2020 will be worse. Ivory Coast and Ghana have tried to raise farmer income and consequently reduce deforestation. One of the key objectives of this project is to able to map our forest resources, tease out commodity crops like the cocoa, rubber and others from the natural forests because as a country we have identified that these commodity crops are the main drivers for deforestation because they are also providing sustenance for the local people. 1 Deforestation: Causes, Effects and Control Strategies Sumit Chakravarty 1, S. K. Ghosh 2, C. P. Suresh 2, A. N. Dey 1 and Gopal Shukla 3 1Department of Forestry 2Pomology & Post Harvest Technology, Faculty of Horticulture Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari 3ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Research Center, Plandu Ranchi India 1. Apart from these two institutions in Ghana, other institutions in the UK such as the University of Edinburg, Cabo Map, and the University of Leicester are part of the project. “In the past from going round, some of the cocoa could stay long at hundred years but now it has come down to ten to fifteen year and because the cocoa farms doesn’t stay long the farmers turn to look for new areas to crop. Dr. Ameyaw, pointed out that the government alone cannot fight the menace unless community members who lived with the perpetrators took bold decisions to report them. But before one can manage any resource well, one must make sure there is very accurate information about the resource, the current state of the resource is known from what is was, then the trends. Biomass and land use carbon emissions data for Ghana "Tree cover threshold" is used for defining the tree cover area. The cocoa industry has committed to deforestation free cocoa production and so this project is very key for them. Though Ghana continues to lose closed forest, the business as usual scenario would have been worse if the GFIP was not implemented. The two countries settled for a fixed premium price – and now farmers in Ghana and the Ivory Coast will get $400 premium per every tonne of cocoa beans they sell during the 2020 … So with this, the country is able to tell in the coming years whether cocoa is eating into forested areas or not. Causes of deforestation The causes of deforestation are numerous, interrelated and complex in nature. According to him, the situation therefore presents the need to strike a balance between increasing the yield of the crops as well as maintaining the natural environment or ecosystem. We thank you for bringing the map here,”. INPE’s deforestation alert system DETER shows that deforestation during January 2020 amounted to 284 square kilometers (110 square miles), an … Code for Africa is partnering with Global Forest Watch to empower African journalists to use Global Forest Watch tools and data to investigate deforestation in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda, and publish a series of data journalism projects on the findings.The project is done in collaboration with partner organisations … Application Deadline: 23 November, 2020. “What is important about this is that we have developed an alert system so anytime there is encroachment we can pick the signals and trace the encroachment and see to it that we address it before it escalates”,Yakubu Mohammed, Head of Geo-Information Unit at RMSC-Forestry Commission and Principal Investigator for Forests 2020 Project, revealed. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has approved a project worth 54.5 million US dollars to address the alarming deforestation and forest degradation challenges in the Northern Savannah Zone of Ghana, whilst promoting investments in the shea value chain and women’s empowerment. However, even these are no longer immune to the advance of deforestation, with many hit hard by a surge of forest loss that began in April. Several areas of t… document.write(user + '@' + site + ''); Introduct Others include Wansambirampa, Wansampo, Attakrom and Old Adiembra, all in the Western North Regions. Mr. Charles Sarpong Duah, Manager of the Climate Change Unit of the FC, appealed to traditional leaders and the media to take an active part in the campaign and educate the public on the negative impact of deforestation and the need to plant trees in their localities. This programme, according to him, represented the largest fully- functional jurisdictional programme in Ghana that provided the framework for engaging multiple government institutions, private sector, civil society, traditional authorities and community representatives, to address key deforestation and forest degradation issues as well as community livelihood improvement, while building climate resilience in the cocoa sector. Professor Acheampong explains that the expectation is for the forestry commission to take over this once the project ends and the outputs are handed to the forestry commission. Dr. Addo Danso also called for the training of farmer groups, traditional leaders and local government leaders to adopt beneficial and climate- smart cocoa farming to sustain production. What would you say are the major drivers of deforestation in Ghana? Dr. Kwakye Ameyaw, Technical Advisor to Chief Executive of Forestry Commission, (FC) asked members in forest fringe communities to lead the fight against deforestation in the country’s forest reserves since it contributed to climate change and impacted negatively on cocoa production. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has approved a project worth 54.5 million US dollars to address the alarming deforestation and forest degradation challenges in the Northern Savannah Zone of Ghana, while promoting investments in the shea value chain and women’s empowerment. And the basic idea is to build our capacity so that we can continue to monitor the forest.”. The recent FAO 2010 report has estimated Ghana’s deforestation at 135 395 ha per year. The project will be implemented by the Forestry Commission (FC), Ghana with technical support from the United Nations Development Programme … in Agriculture. Dr. Shalom D. Addo Danso, Lead Consultant of KABSTREK Consult, said unsustainable agricultural activities, especially for cocoa and food crop production had been identified as one of the most important drivers of deforestation. It is very important because we know that cocoa production leads to forest lost – deforestation- so once we have been able to segregate. The outcome of the study showed unequivocally that deforestation rate which was assessed to be 1.3% in the closed forest in 2014, has significantly reduced to 0.9% in 2017. As part of an analysis of the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, we carried out comprehensive assessments of the three ecological zones of Ghana: the High Forest Zone (HFZ), the Northern Savannah (NZ) and the Transition Zone (TZ). Ghana has begun employing earth observation technologies to monitor its forest resources to understand the extent of deforestation especially by cocoa production. 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