By Zulka / padfm.com.gh
The Paramount Chief of the Buipe Traditional Area and vice president of the Gonja Traditional Council, Buipewura Jinapor II and the Central Gonja district held a district stakeholder consultative dialogue on illegal logging, commercial charcoal burning and commercial fuel wood activities bordering the environment of the district on Friday April 30, 2021 at Buipe.
Welcoming participants to the program, Buipewura called for total support from all stakeholders to ban the menace and explained that matters of the environment are of great concern to the rest of the World, saying ” it is a known professional statement that when the last tree dies the last man dies “.
As part of measures to protect and control the environment, Buipewura said many measures have been put in place by the government of Ghana to protect the environment and its species for the people of Ghana. The Forestry Commission (FC), a public service institution, was set up subject to the provisions of the 1992 Constitution, Chapter 21, Article 269, sub-section 1. The FC was re-established by Act 571 of 1999 in order to bring under the Commission the main public bodies and agencies implementing the functions of protection, development, management and regulation of forests and wildlife resources in the Country.
Mole National Park was established in 1958 and the Kenikeni forest reserve in 1955 all to protect the environment.
The Gonja Traditional Council, Savannah Regional Coordinating Council (SRCC) and all stakeholders ordered all the actors involved in the manace to vacate from the lands of Gonja state from 10th May, 2021, or face the necessary sanctions.
Buipewura warned that the decision of the Savannah Region House of Chiefs on the environmental ban of illegal logging, commercial charcoal burning and commercial fuel wood activities in the Region are not about politics or NPP and NDC of the political divide. The focus instead is about patriotism, great commitment and objectively preparing for the present generation and the unborn.
” Great generations have no locus in building Houses and buying fleet of vehicles for their children to make them happy. Rather, great generations protect the natural resources for the present and the unborn to make them happy to provide life starter ingredients for their future development and to provide the economic morsel for their generation to stand firm to compute with the rest of the World “.
He announced the closure of Buipe Charcoal Market, the biggest in the region.
” In line with the ban of illegal logging, commercial charcoal burning and commercial fuel wood activities by the Regional House of Chiefs, today, and by extension the 10th Day of May 2021, I declare to the people of the Central Gonja District and Ghana at large that the Buipe charcoal park popularly known as ‘Bidie Park’ has been closed and banned from its usual activities “.
This decision is in the right direction to protect the wanton depleted vegetation cover of the Savannah Region to reclaim its natural state in due course, he added.
He urged the Paramount Chiefs across the Gonja state to adhere to the policy document presented by the five (5) eminent Chiefs committee, led by the Bolewura Kutugefeso I.
He said paragraph six (6) of the Regional House of Chiefs communique directs that ‘every paramount chief should as a matter of urgency form a taskforce in line with the composition of the taskforce spelt out in the committee’s communique in his jurisdiction to support the ban to achieve its set goals and report same to the Regional House of Chiefs. I passionately wish to inform paramount chiefs and the people of the Central Gonja District to immediately form taskforces and make them functional for the ban to achieve its objectives.
Buipewura thanked the committee for its good work done to the people of Savannah Region by producing a laudable and effective communique on matters related to the environment.
He expressed his profound gratitude to the good people of Central Gonja district and called on them to massively support the ban and all the conditions accordingly, for the ban to achieve its purpose.
The Hon. DCE for Central Gonja district, Mustapha Mahama said the menace has a lot of negative impact on the environment and has been a grave concern to government. The activities generate global warming through production and emission of green house gases, deforestation, violence, human rights abuses, corruption, funding of arm conflicts and worsening of poverty.
He assured that tremendous efforts are being made by the Nana Akufo-Addo government to address the issue and therefore, gives total support to the ban. The security in the district is ready for the battle, he added.
He expressed gratitude to the Traditional Council, SRCC and all the MDAs in the region for the bold decision to ban the illegality for the benefit of the future generations.
The leadership of the Forestry Commission, Police, Military and other security agencies attended the program.
The program was held across the five (5) Paramountcies within the district and Gonjaland.
padfm.com.gh / Abdulai Zulkaninu
