The Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Benito Owusu-Bio, has called for effective monitoring and supervision of the seedlings planted during the Green Ghana tree planting exercise.
Speaking on the aftermath of the exercise, he maintained the monitoring must be done to boost government’s aggressive afforestation and reforestation programme.
“We need to make conscious efforts to nurture the trees by watering them, protect them from destruction, prevent fires, weed under them until they grow to maturity.”
Benito Owusu-Bio
Mr. Owusu-Bio disclosed that a total of 22,671,696 seedlings were distributed for the 2022 edition of the Green Ghana agenda, which well exceeds the initial 20 million target. As such, he intimated that, the survival rate this year will be more than the 85% survival rate last year.
“The Ministry has put in place a monitoring and assessment team under the chairmanship of Francis Manu-Adabor, who is the chairman of the Parliamentary select committee on lands and forestry to undertake comprehensive field assessment of trees planted this year which includes other members of the Committee like myself and the CEO of the Forestry Commission.”
Benito Owusu-Bio
Honorable Owusu-Bio used the occasion to rebuff claims by some section of the media that the Green Ghana Day programme was politicized and partisan. He indicated that the event was a national assignment and that the inclusiveness of Ghanaians with diverse backgrounds in the political and religious landscape such as the former President John Dramani Mahama, former President John Agyekum Kufuor, the National Chief Imam and high profile members of the clergy gives this clear indication that it is for Ghana.
GHS6 million disbursed for project
Touching on the budget and expenditure of the Green Ghana Day, Benito Owusu-Bio revealed that, GHS6 million was disbursed to the Ministry for the project, out of which the 22 million tree seedlings were obtained, which also included publicity and other expenses in the lead up to the planting. He added that subsequently, a detailed report of the expenses will be made available to the public just like that of last year.
According to the Ministry, out of the seedlings distributed across the 16 regions of the country, 40.2 per cent were planted in forest reserves, while the remaining 59.8 per cent were planted on off-reserve areas.
Additionally, there were 55 different tree species among the over 22 million tree seedlings distributed, with 17 million being timber species, three million shade trees, while ornamentals and other species accounted for the remaining seedlings.
It can be recalled that the Lands Minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor, on March 23, 2021, launched the maiden greening project as part of activities to mark the International Day of Forests, which fell on March 21. This move followed a directive by the President in 2021 during his message on the State of the Nation, where he called for the Green Ghana initiative to mobilize Ghanaians for an aggressive nationwide tree-planting exercise.
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