The Bono Regional Minister, Hon.Justina Owusu-Banahene, has called for concerted effort to protect the nation’s forest reserves for posterity especially the indigenous plants and animals.
She said, the forest is a valuable national asset that should not be destroyed through the greed and selfishness of few individuals and therefore there should be systematic efforts to green our environment.
The Minister disclosed this during the Green Ghana Day programme at University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) campus, Sunyani on Friday which is a national effort at planting more than 5 million trees in a single day to preserve and protect the country’s forest cover and the environment at large.
Justina Owusu-Banahene explained that thousands of seedlings made up of different tree species had already been distributed to all the 12 municipal and district assemblies in the region through the Forestry Commission for further distribution to individual Ghanaians and organizations for the purposes of planting.
She averred that, the plunder of the forest with impunity in addition to the shrinking of the forest cover should encourage all to take the appropriate action to prevent the loss of the forest cover or collectively we will suffer the consequences.
She noted that active involvement of Ghanaians especially in the forest fringe communities was critical to the fight to end the wanton destruction of the reserves and therefore appeal to all Ghanaians to take advantage of this tree planting day and plant a tree to green the environment.