A/R: NGO rescues dying cocoa plants with tree planting project

Ghanaian-based non-governmental organisation, Centre for Climate Change and Food Security (CCCFS) has begun a second phase of a pilot tree planting project at Timeabu in the Ashanti region.

The project is aimed at protecting dying cocoa trees and preserving the environment by planting trees which “will help remove carbon dioxide from the air”, and create a conducive atmosphere for cocoa production.

The project has come at a time when the farming community is experiencing some levels of devastation, especially with cocoa plantation due to bad weather conditions and poor rainfall, a situation scientists attribute to high carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The exercise was initiated by the CCCFS and supported by senior research officers, Fuad Mohammed and Abednago Asante, both at the Ghana Cocoa Board. It is one of the many outlined community programmes earmarked to complement efforts of rural farmers to contribute towards government’s target of producing over one million tonnes of cocoa in four years.

One of the beneficiary farmers, Nana Dasebere Boama Darko, believes his colleagues would be relieved of the severe weather condition when the trees grow.

So far, about 200 framo trees have been planted in the community and the project is expected to be carried out in many communities across the country in the coming months.

“Protecting the ecology is very important. We are likely to live a shameful life if trees continue to die every day,” Executive Director of the Centre, Mahmud Mohammed-Nurudeen told media men.

Mohammed-Nurudeen added “planting of trees is also to sequester carbon, and help remove carbon dioxide from the air, which cools the earth.”

The carbon storage capacity of forests is about three times as large as the pool of carbon in the atmosphere.

If forests are reduced, or eliminated, he says, the captured carbon goes into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Despite their importance to life, Mohammed-Nurudeen, emphasizes humans have felled half of the world’s trees.

“Every year we cut down over 50,000 square miles of forest worldwide for paper, agriculture, building materials and fuel,” he noted.

Head of Climate Change Reporters in Ghana, Kofi Adu Domfeh, also emphasized the need to put trees back any way we can, as fast as we can.

“What you may not know is that trees also build soil and offer energy-saving shade that reduces global warming,” he said

Mr. Domfeh says, “we want to create habitat for thousands of different species and also help to reduce ozone levels.”

Farmers who received the trees expressed their excitements and promised to provide them the needed nutrients to grow.

The Centre aims to provide enabling environment for all species, make issues of food security relevant and tackle climate change head-on to make Ghana better place to live.

Last year, CCCFS started “climate talk program” in both tertiary and secondary schools in the country. It is purposely to sensitize students and encourage them to take environmental issues seriously.

Another event that has caught attention of Ghanaians was the launch of campaign against food wastage and overeating in the Upper West Region. The campaign has since brought some levels of change in the Ghanaian society.

By Ibrahim Abubakar|3news.com|Ghana

The post A/R: NGO rescues dying cocoa plants with tree planting project appeared first on 3newsgh.

Read Full Story