The much-awaited Green Ghana Day has come off today, Friday, June 9, across the country to plant 10 million seedlings.
The Green Ghana Day was launched by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in 2021 under the auspices of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, as part of an aggressive afforestation and reforestation agenda of the government.
The initiative is intended to restore the lost forest cover of the country devastated by illegal small-scale mining and timber logging.
The maiden edition targeted to plant five million trees, but ended up planting over seven million seedlings.
In 2022, more than 26 million trees were planted, exceeding the 20 million target.
The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II officially launched this year’s edition of the Green Ghana Day on Wednesday, May 17 at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, urging all well-meaning Ghanaians to support the tree planting exercise.
Here in the Western Region, the event was launched at the premises of the Volta River Authority where the Regional, Dr Kwabena Okyere Darko Mensah said the Western Region is the home to some of the most bio-diverse and productive forests in Ghana.
He said the plantation product in the region contributes to more forest products in Ghana than any other region combine gaining over 73.35 million dollars for the country each year.
He said, For this reason, the Western Region should heavily invest in this exercise.
He said, “The region contributes about 51% of cocoa, 98% of Ghana’s rubber, 85% of coconut and timber gaining over $73.5 million for the country each year.”
The regional minister revealed that the Western Region has lost 799 hectares of tree covers from fire from 2001 to 2021 and 120 hectares of the plant to fire in 2022.
“Other activities contribute to us losing over 498-kilometre hectares which clearly states that we are using a lot.”
The Deputy Director of Operations of the Forestry Commission, Madam Lydia Opoku speaking at the event said the survival rate of trees since the inception of the Green Day has been 72%.
She added that the target of the Western Region is 150,000 seedlings for this year’s Green Ghana Day.
“The target for Takoradi district is 80,000 seedlings to be planted for this Green Ghana Day, and since the inception, Takoradi District has planted 350,000 seedlings and the success rate is 72%.”
“Our target is not tree species alone, but fruit trees, timber species, ornamental trees.”
