SHORT: Fostering Reforestation, Environmental Sustainability & Tourism in Okyeman Area(Ghana).

In this short, Queen mother in Okyeman area, Comfort Adibu shares her experience from FOREST Okyeman Project: As a CREMA leader, she discusses the capacity building aspect of the project, which aims at safeguarding natural resources,assisting communities to revive existing resource management groups and establishing landscape-level governance structures through the Community Resource Management Areas (CREMA) model. The CREMA model, made up of farmers, local chiefs, government representatives, opinion leaders, private sector, and landowners, was created to co-manage natural resources and create awareness, address violations, strengthen accountability, and build capacity on best agroforestry practices, while empowering the local communities to manage their natural resources. The Capacity building workshops were held in 8 communities with training sessions ranging from legal frameworks for natural resource (water, wildlife, minerals, forest, land etc.) management, sustainable agriculture, ecology and monitoring protocols for forests as well as identifying natural resource enterprises and value chains to improve livelihoods of the community.