Ursula leads Green Ghana Project in MOCD and Ablekuma West

Minister of Communications and Digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, says the Green Ghana initiative which is aimed at planting trees across the country to help shore up the country’s forest cover is needed because it would help with the sustainability of human lives.

The Minister on Friday, June 11, 2021, led her staffs, other agencies under her Ministry and residents of the Ablekuma West Constituency to plant high amount of trees to help in the initiative.

Speaking to the press at a brief ceremony at her Ministry in Accra to participate in the Green Ghana programme, Mrs. Ursula Owusu said, “we have destroyed a lot of the vegetative cover in our country so we have destroyed our forest and our green surrounding, now we can be part of the solution.”

According to her, the tree planting exercise initiated by the Lands Ministry will be a continuous event to preserve our environment adding that, “we intend to enhance ongoing afforestation programme, and see to the sustainable exploitation of our forest resources.”

“We need this tree planting initiative so well in ways to increase our sustainability, because the trees suck the carbon dioxide we produce when we breathe and give us oxygen and we need that to breath healthy air. So without the trees, our very survival as human beings is threatened. Through human activity, we destroy a lot of the vegetative cover in our country; we destroy our forest and our surroundings. Now we can be part of the solution, we created the problem, we can also be part of the solution and so my Ministry and it all agencies support the green Ghana project initiated by the Ministry of Lands and Resources. In our part, we are helping to plant some of the 5 million trees that the whole country intends to plant today.

She added, “We believe that even the work we do is depended on it, and I just charge the Kofi Annan Annan ICT Centre to develop an application that will help monitor the health and growth of the five million trees being planted nationwide so we can use digital technology to also assist this effort and I they’ve assured me of good response soon. It is our responsibility to make sure the trees grow well, we need to monitor and nurture it grow to the best level. Out of sustaining it for better growth, we can continue to enjoy benefits from it. Some are planting mangos, oranges among others – with the growth of it, we can sustain the development of our forest cover and the volume of trees that needs to be cut down. If we all work together, we will achieve the purpose of protecting our environment. Everyone can play a part in our own small ways.”

Laws

Answering to a question on whether Parliament of Ghana would ever consider a law to stop the needless cutting down of trees across the country, Mrs. Ursula responded in the positive.

She said, “Absolutely there need to be laws stopping people from destroying trees planted. Even if you planted the trees yourself, you cannot uproot it without authority from the Municipal Authority. We can introduce similar legislation to protect our trees. Like it is done in other parts of the world, we will find out that the trees we plant today will not be cut down by someone else tomorrow. Even when we are doing construction, we will do it in environmentally sustainable manner, and the construction of the National Cathedral has thought us something, there were trees over hundred years planted, it was not cut down, they needed to relocate them for the construction to take place and the clever solution was to uproot the trees and replant it at a different location and further water it. We need to use such initiatives not to destroy trees planted over the years during construction of roads and things.”

Ablekuma West Constituency

In a Facebook post, she indicated, “I later joined the people of the Ablekuma West constituency for a similar exercise in different parts of the municipality. The Forestry commission supplied the Ablekuma West Municipal with Acacia, Militia and Lindberg plants.

“Let’s use biodegradable materials and ban single use plastics. Let’s promote recycling materials and start source separation of waste to reduce the amount of garbage that ends up in our landfill sites. Let’s unite to save the environment and restore our ecosystem.”