First Published :2 Dec 2024
Author: Kingsley Adusei Amakye
https://3news.com/news/natural-resources-managers-in-atewa-west-sensitised-on-by-laws/
A project dubbed ‘Forest Okyeman’ which aims to safeguard natural resources and assist communities in the Okyeman area to revive destroyed natural resources through the Community Resource Management Areas (CREMA) model has been launched.
The CREMA model is to address violations, strengthen accountability, and build capacity on best agroforestry practices and empower the local communities to manage their natural resources and ensure benefits are distributed equitably.The model comprises farmers, local chiefs, government representatives, opinion leaders, private sector, and landowners to co-manage natural resources and create awareness.
It is against this backdrop that the ‘Forest Okyeman project’ seeks to change the narrative by building the capacity of various stakeholders in the Okyeman area to safeguard natural resources and assist communities to revive existing natural resources through the Community Resource Management Areas (CREMA) model.
The CREMA model compromises farmers, local chiefs, government representatives, opinion leaders, private sector, and landowners to co-manage natural resources and create awareness, address violations, strengthen accountability, and build capacity on best agroforestry practices and empower the local communities to manage their natural resources and ensure benefits are distributed equitably.
The project brought together natural resource management and legal experts to build the capacity of fifty-six executives of CREMA and 464 people across eight communities including Bomaa, Awenare, Apampatia, Abisem, Banso, Pameng, Akropong, and Larbikrom in Atiwa West District.
Over a period of three years, these CREMA leaders have been taken through a series of capacity building workshops and demonstrations, and have acquired skills and knowledge to enable them actively take over the roles of coordinating the management of natural resources within these communities.
Forests play a significant role in the socio-economic development of most African countries.
In Ghana, forest accounts for about 6% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 11% of export earnings with over 2.5 million people dependent on it for provision of food, medicine, clothing, shelter, furniture, potable water supply sources and bush meat (Forestry Department, 2001, Lebedys 2004).
However, these critical national assets and other natural resources in the Okyeman area, have experienced various forms of degradation, exploitation and other series of destructive activities that continue to threaten the sustainability of this forest area, its resources and the livelihoods of the communities surrounding it.
Ghana’s high forest areas, including the Akyem Abuakwa area, have experienced some of the highest levels of deforestation over the past decade attributable to socio-economic activities such as illegal timber logging, mining, expansion in agricultural land use and bad agricultural practices, wildfires, and to some extent unsecured land and tree tenure arrangements.
These activities contributed greatly to the loss of about 30% of Ghana’s forest in the Eastern Region. (Ghana Country Environmental Analysis,2020).
One of the biologically important forests in Ghana and West Africa is the Atewa forest located in the Eastern Region of Ghana. It occupies the eastern end of the Upper Guinea forest ecological region and is one of only two “Upland Evergreen” forests in Ghana rich in fauna and flora biodiversity.
The forest serves as the source of three important rivers Ayensu, Birim, Densu, and more than 99 smaller streams that serve the country. The forest is unique with a high number of globally threatened species in West Africa.
Some activities carried out include workshops on the legal framework for natural resource management, Conservation and sustainable agriculture, Basic knowledge of forest ecology, monitoring protocols and identification of natural resources enterprise and value chains for Community Resource Management Area; and Awareness raising of CREMA in communities as well as by-laws on natural resource management.
To help streamline the framework of the project for stakeholders to adhere to the CREMA, by-laws have been instituted to guide the process. A two-day sensitization workshop has been held for CREMA community leaders and members to review and amend the by-laws.
Experts were drawn from Natural Resource Agencies, including Water Commission, Minerals Commission, Wildlife Division, Forest Services Division, and Environmental Protection Agency.
The general purpose of the CREMA by-laws is to back the CREMA constitution in Atiwa West District Assembly (AWDA) and other CREMAs that might come up within AWDA.
The experts highlighted some of the by-laws which spell out that mining activities should be carried out at 60 t0 100 meters away from any river, stream or waterbody, mining without requisite permits is prohibited as well as degrading forest lands of CREMA through illegal logging.
Others are, hunting and capturing as well as destroying any wildlife (animal) in the CREMA without permit from the CREMA Executive Committee is prohibited, Pollution of streams and rivers with agrochemicals or dirtying waterbodies through mining as well as burning without supervision from Community Fire Volunteer Squads is prohibited.
The rest are, fostering reforestation, environmental sustainability and tourism requires equipping local traditional and community leaders, stakeholders that are often overlooked in development discourse and project implementation.
The next phase of the project is for these by-laws to be gazetted by the Eastern Regional Minister.
The ‘Forest Okyeman project’ is funded by United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security and is implemented by UNEP, UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, UNU-INRA, traditional authorities, CSOs OEF, A Rocha-Ghana, Forestry Commission amongst others.
Government ministries and district assemblies have also played critical roles in the implementation of the project.
