The Ghana Wildlife Society on Tuesday, 29th November, 2022 inaugurated a Solar Powered drip irrigation system at Mognori in the West Gonja Municipality of the Savannah region for members of their Community Resource management areas ( CREMA ) in Mognori.
The facility is build up with a borehole, a pump, solar panels and a water receiving tank using water from the ground with the use of sun energy as it’s power source.
The project will serve as a climate smart Agriculture training hub for women in the Mognori community especially in the dry season, to cultivate vegetables such as Tomatoes, okro, Garden eggs among others that can be used for home consumption and also for sale.
In a welcome address, the Assistant Park Manager of the Mole National park, Mr. Bona Kyiira on behalf of the Park Manager said, the relationship between the Mole National Park and Mognori and it’s adjourning communities has been a very long one which has increasingly built a relationship that is bearing more fruits that are helpful to the benefit of the people of Mognori and the Mole National Park.
He added that, a lot more benefits are in the pipeline which he is very sure will increase and also make their lives better as a park and a community.
Mr. Bona expressed gratitude to the donors of the project for implementing such an initiative that is aimed at fostering the livelihoods of the women in the mognori area.
The Executive Director of the Ghana wildlife society, Mr. David Guva Kpelle on his part explained that, the solar powered irrigation facility is being handed over to the women to honor a promise made by the Ghana Wildlife society to initiate some livelihood support schemes to help reduce the poverty of the people in the CREMA communities.
He said a lot has been done so far in the mognori community as part of measures to improve upon the livelihoods of the people of mognori for demonstrating their commitment to support the Mole National Park in it’s management.
Mr. David added that, the solar powered irrigation project is one of the additions brought to mognori because of their membership to the CREMA and also because of their continuous support to the Mole National park.
The executive Director thanked AfriEvolve and thru – Nabu for their support in the implementation of the project and urged the people of mognori to continue to collaborate with them as they have many more initiatives to bring to the area helpimprove on their livelihoods.
The event was witnessed by the Chief and people of the Mognori community with the formation of an eight member management committee to help the women in the management of the facility.
The CREMA mechanism is an innovative natural resource management and landscape-level planning tool for community initiatives and developed by Ghana’s Wildlife Division, an arm of the Forestry Commission, together with its partners, to support community resource management in off-reserve (un-gazetted) lands.
CREMAs fill a critical gap by giving communities the right to manage and benefit economically from their natural resources. While Ghana’s Constitution vests ownership of the land in the Stool or Skin (the traditional or customary leadership structures that preside over a particular ethnic group, clan or tribe and the associated land and resources) it gives the Government the right to manage the naturally occurring resources for economic gain which has resulted in a series of perverse incentives that, over the decades, have tended to drive ‘illegal’ resource use and degradation or deforestation of the forest resources.
The CREMA represents a profound policy shift by permitting communities, land owners and land users an opportunity to govern and manage forest and wildlife resources within the boundaries of the CREMA and to benefit financially or in kind.
Source: /Padfm.com.gh/Kumatey Gorden/0243531604
