This article is a reaction to an article which is recently published by the Daily Guide on modernghana.com. The article can be found here: http://www.modernghana.com/news/356819/1/all-die-be-die-movement-launched.html

I am really shocked at the incessant pursuit of the “All die be die” agenda which is swirling in the NPP. Against all arguments this agenda has no etymological morality neither it is even professional let alone reflecting the objectives of the “All die be die Movement” which has currently been launched in the Ashanti Region. Where is Ghana moving towards?

Nana Addo Danquah who first used the phrase in his campaign tours in Koforidua least taught about the influence of words and it’s consequences.

Etymology of All die be die

I recently read an article by K. Awusabo-Asare et al. captioned, “‘All die be die’: obstacles to change in the face of HIV infection in Ghana.” In the article, the authors outlined the origin of the word which in its broader sense saw it as an obstacle to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The philosophical transliteration of the word will mean, “In whichever way you die, death is death.” To the person who live by this statement, death is not a matter of question. The actual sense or etymology of the phrase is not positive to a conscientious person who thinks that life has a fulfillment and therefore must be lived with care and caution.

As part of the aims of the All die be die movement as outlined in the article shall include “… to protect the country’s young democracy and to project the opposition flag-bearer Nana Akufo-Addo who is credited with popularizing the ‘all-die-be-die’ phrase… the movement will play a crucial role in educating many Ghanaians on their civic responsibility.”

In such academia world today, one could see that the target of the movement is not incongruent with the name as supposed. Something that seeks to protect the nation and to promote peace will not bear such a name. It’s unethical to Ghanaian norms and values and further unprofessional in it’s nature.

In the article, it was stated that, “…every Ghanaian has a responsibility to protect himself or herself in the face of intimidation and repression by political opponents, especially when the security forces, whose duty it is to protect lives of all Ghanaians look on helplessly.”

I can say with all confidence that, this movement is an angry mob and seek to take vengeance by themselves “by hook or crook” because all die be die. It is a conspiracy movement. They think the rules have not been fair and those responsible for settling justice have failed so it’s time to promote courage in their own way.

Because of the ongoing opposition between the NPP and NDC, one needs to be very careful with words and whatever one does.

So could we trust NPP at all? Will the nobles and scholars within the NPP sit down for such a deviant movement be going on in the party? If nothing is done about this movement, am afraid to say that, the agenda to protect our young democracy is at risk. I am really disappointed in Nana Addo Danquah and his NPP.

The time has come for Ghana to move forward in the right direction. After 55 years of independence, our minds are not still fashioned professionally and artistically. Where are we going?

I will also even condemn the propaganda office within the NDC. All these things are institutions which are sending the country back to it’s dark ages.

The role of the judiciary

The judiciary of Ghana has actually failed Ghana. These are some of the issues that the law must deal with to prevent future catastrophes. It’s about time the judiciary of Ghana begin to question some matters arising in Ghana especially those that sensitize conflict.

Ghana must live. Yes she must live!

Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

During my days as a student in KNUST, we were discussing deforestation one day and I remember a friend told me that it was impossible for all the trees to disappear and hence he added that there was absolutely no need for me to study Forest management. That is the extent to which we can take the trees and forests around us for granted. Contrary to my friend’s view, there is no doubt whatsoever that all the mature trees can indeed vanish. Current trends of degradation and deforestation suggest that much of our country will end up as desert within the next half century. See tables 1 and 2 below.

According to Mongabay.com, between 1990 and 2000, Ghana lost an average of 135,400 hectares of forest per year. This amounts to an average annual deforestation rate of 1.82%. Also, between 2000 and 2005, the rate of forest change increased by 4.2% to 1.89% per annum. In total, between 1990 and 2005, Ghana lost 25.9% of its forest cover, or around 1,931,000 hectares.

Table 1: Ghana’s Forest cover 2010 

Total Land Area (1000 square kilometers) — 22754

Total Forest Area (1000 ha) — 4940

Percent Forest Cover — 22

Primary Forest Cover (1000 ha) — 395

Primary Forest, % total forest — 8

Other wooded land (1000 ha) — 0

Percent other wooded land — 0

Table 2: TOTAL FOREST COVER (1000 ha)

Year ——- Remaining cover

1990 ——- 7448

2000 ——- 6094

2005 ——- 5517

2010 ——- 4940

Source: http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Ghana.htm

As seen in table 2 above, the forest cover continues to decrease from 1990 to 2010. This suggests that if pragmatic measures are not taken to halt or reverse the trend, Ghana could be moving towards serious problems.

In this article I intend to assess the tree resource of our nation, highlight their important uses and hence redirect public interest towards tree planting and forest protection in general. First of all it may be prudent to answer the question of what a tree is. One great Forester defined a tree as any plant which is big enough such that you can climb it. For the purposes of this article I think it is sufficient but from a more scientific point of view, a tree is any plant greater than 5min height and with an upright stem.

It is an undeniable fact that trees play a vital role in our very existence as humans. They perform vital ecological, environmental, cultural, economic, and spiritual functions. Trees release oxygen through photosynthesis, enabling animals and humans to live. Many people may be familiar with the expression “when the last tree dies, the last man dies” but the question is, how seriously do we take this saying?

Trees are important for maintaining the energy balance of the earth. They also play a vital role in the water cycle and hence can help regulate rainfall distribution and intensity. Also, trees bind soil particles together thus minimizing the risk of soil erosion and may also serve to maintain and improve soil fertility. Trees are also found to be useful in conserving and prolonging the life span of water bodies as they tend to conserve the moisture levels. Due to the soil-binding properties of the roots, trees can also help prevent siltation of water bodies through erosion. Furthermore, trees have the potential to minimize risk of floods by regulating surface and subsurface water flows, thus enabling gradual recharge of groundwater. Firstly, trees prevent the direct physical impact of heavy rains on the soil. Secondly during rains, water is intercepted by tree leaves, branches, stems and roots and this is released gradually thus preventing what would otherwise have been a direct one-off input of water into the ground. Though not the complete solution to flooding, floods are more likely to occur where there are no trees than where there are trees.

Trees also play a vital role in nutrient cycling by taking up nutrients from the deep parts of the soil (with their deep rooting system) and returning it through litter fall to the top soil where other plant roots (with different rooting strategies) can make use of the nutrients. In this regard, if appropriate species are selected, trees may help to improve fertility and thus improve crop yields and productivity. This is why our farmers must be encouraged to embrace the planting of trees on their farms. Trees also help to reduce wind speeds thus playing a crucial role in reducing damage associated with storms. A house with no trees around it is more likely to have the roof taken off as compared to one with lots of trees. Private households and public buildings must be encouraged to plant lots of tall trees around to minimize the occurrences of wind disasters that happen on a yearly basis in the country.

Planting trees would also help improve our health. The more trees we have around, the more refined the air around. Trees help to absorb carbon dioxide, dust and other gases present in the air and thus may reduce air related diseases.

Last but not least, trees provide shade to allow us to hide from the searing heat of the sun. We all know the relief we feel when we get under a nice shade after a long walk under the sun. Trees are also known to store carbon and thus reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This helps to fight climate change and global warming. It is known that the amount of carbon currently stored in trees is twice as much as the amount in the atmosphere now (IPCC 2007). Imagine what would happen therefore if all of this is released into the atmosphere as a result of deforestation. This means that we would have three times as much carbon dioxide as we have today and several times as much climate related disasters as we have today. Another important issue to mention is that tropical trees store twice as much carbon as trees in the temperate zone (Ravindranath and Madelene, 2008), hence it is even more important to protect our trees and to plant more. Temperate regions are particularly reliant on tropical regions for storing carbon up in trees.

Comparing the deforestation rates with the amount of replanting in Ghana, I feel it would be right to say that trees have been more a rejected resource than protected. I would make the following recommendations as a way of helping improve the tree cover of the nation.

1. Our housing laws must be restructured to ensure that every one who builds a house also incorporates tree planting around the house. This will reduce the amount of destruction caused by wind. Note also that trees planted around houses must be well managed to reduce risk of damage from tree fall.

2. The media should devote some time to raise awareness on tree planting as well as tree protection. What people hear more often tends to influence their perceptions and behaviours hence if more about tree planting is talked about, it will hopefully help. Tree planting should be a daily affair and not a special thing that happens once in a year.

3. Agroforestry practices should be embraced and farmers should be encouraged to incorporate tree planting into their normal agricultural activities.

4. Government and other development partners such as NGOs should introduce schemes that provide farmers with incentives to incorporate tree planting activities as well as reward farmers who do not cut down already existing trees on their farm lands

5. Government and other development partners should provide seedlings for interested farmers at low cost and also encourage community wood land establishment
All said and done, this piece of work will come down to a mere rhetoric if no action is initiated as a result of it. I encourage readers to plant a tree each upon reading this article. Come to think about it, can we not plant a tree each year say on our birthdays? I am pretty sure that this would not be too much to accomplish and we can each find land at home, or at the office to do this. Plant it on your birthday and assess how well you have done by your next birthday and plant another one.

Plant a tree today and save your local environment and the climate and the world

Credit: Guuroh Reginald
Email: [email protected]

[email protected]
[email protected]

References
1. http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Ghana.htm
2. IPCC 2007. Synthesis report
3. Ravindranath N.H and Madelene O., (2008). Carbon Inventory Methods Handbook for Greenhouse Gas Inventory, Carbon Mitigation and Roundwood Production Projects

Deforestation is a global menace which has received much public attention in most countries in recent years. The international community, governments at national level, NGOs, and other such organizations are raising awareness about the dangerous consequences of forest loss to the environment and hence humanity. The FAO 2010 report revealed an alarming rate of deforestation with a global loss of around 13 million hectares of forest each year in the last decade (2000 to 2010). This deforested area is more than half the total area of Ghana. The report indicated that Africa has the second highest rate of deforestation worldwide (with 3.4 million hectares of forest loss annually).The situation is not any different in Ghana where forest has been under pressure from human activities over the last century.

This article seeks to highlight the state of Ghana’s forest resource, considering trends over the past 100 years. The article will also briefly discuss the causes of deforestation and present some suggested solutions.

Definitions 
The terms degradation and deforestation may be familiar to workers and students in forestry, but probably not to all. Deforestation is defined as the conversion of forest to non forest land uses. This means that if a land previously occupied by forest is cleared for agriculture or a building project, then deforestation would have occurred. Degradation however refers to any activity that affects the quality of the forest. For example, bush fires may cause degradation but may not necessarily result in deforestation. By FAO definitions, an area is considered to be forest if it covers an area greater than 0.5 hectares, and has 10% or more tree crown cover. In turn, trees can be defined as having a single stem and the potential to reach a minimum height of 2-5 metres at maturity. An alternative definition is that it is possible to climb a tree at maturity, in comparison to shrubs which cannot be climbed.

Deforestation rates
Total land area of Ghana is about 23.85 million hectares. At the beginning of the last century, about one-third (i.e 8.2 million hectares) of the area was covered by high forest while the remaining two-third (15.7 million hectares) was savanna woodland (Owusu et. al., 1999). The area of high forest (off reserve) has drastically reduced and the only remaining portions today are mainly in protected areas. Records show that at the turn of the last century, Ghana had about 8.8 million ha of primary forest. By 1950, the area had been reduced to 4.2 million ha and further to about 1.5 million ha by 1999 (Owusu et. al., 1999). This implies that from 1900 to 1950, the nation lost 50% of its primary forest cover and also lost 60% of it between 1950 and 1999. On a 100 year scale (1900 to 2000), the nation lost over 80% of the closed forest (a reduction from 8.8 million ha to 1.5 million ha). Farrhead and Leach, (1998) estimated the deforestation rate to be a massive 22,000ha per year around the late 90’s. From some more recent trends, Mongabay.com reported that, between 1990 and 2000, the average annual deforestation rate was 1.82%. Also, between 2000 and 2005, the rate of forest change increased by 4.2% to 1.89% per annum. The recent FAO 2010 report has estimated Ghana’s deforestation at 135 395 ha per year.

Causes of deforestation
The causes of deforestation are numerous, interrelated and complex in nature. Most causes can be linked to livelihood and development. There are both direct and indirect causes. The indirect (underlying) causes are those factors that trigger the actual causes and these include; poverty, ignorance, corrupt practices of governments, security & forestry officials, weak institutions, inappropriate policies, lack of law enforcement, lack of concern by local communities, land tenure issues among others.

According to Nsenkyire (1998), the main causes in Ghana are (i) forest clearance for cocoa and food crop farms and (ii) logging (both legal and illegal). Illegal logging is a major cause of deforestation, depriving the Ghanaian economy of fibre, legal employment and tax revenues. This is done by selfish people who try and keep all the benefits away from the nation. Legal logging could also still be harmful to forest if not done in environmentally friendly ways. Clearance of forest for agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation not only in Ghana but in the whole of Africa (FAO 2003). Because of reducing soil fertility, an ever increasing area has to be planted in order to grow sufficient food. As a result, rural families clear portions of land yearly for crop cultivation. Other causes of deforestation are shifting cultivation, bush fires, harvesting of fuel wood, human settlements and overgrazing. Conversion of forest lands for industrial activities or infrastructural development is another cause of forest loss. Examples include forest clearance for mining, industrial development, building of stadia, schools and other large infrastructure projects.

Suggested Solutions 
One would think that the solution to degradation and deforestation lies with stopping the direct causes of deforestation. I agree with this only to some extent. In my opinion, halting forest loss should rather tackle both the direct causes and indirect causes, i.e. both prevention and cure. For example, one direct cause of deforestation is illegal logging. In trying to fight deforestation, we may not go very far if we are merely trying to stop illegal logging. We might be better off solving the underlying cause of illegal logging which may be weak institutions or corruption or both. Similarly, we can only stop deforestation triggered by poverty when we have been able to tackle and deal with the poverty problems. Poor families who cannot afford alternative energy sources for cooking cannot be stopped from harvesting fuelwood since this will lead to hunger. In developed countries, the majority of people do not directly depend on the forest for energy to cook, hence it is easier to conserve forests.

The Ghana forestry commission is committed to tackling deforestation. Their efforts will not be successful until they are complemented with efforts of forest fringe communities. These groups often know of illegal activities in their local forests but tend to condone these activities. It is common recently to find chain saw operators even in northern Ghana selecting and cutting the few economic trees left in the area. Local people are those who help these illegal people to locate such trees in order to make their own gains at the expense of the whole of the nation. These rural dwellers may not be well informed about the benefits of preserving trees and even if they know, they value the money they get from chain saw operators much more than allowing the tree to stand.

There should be more training given to forestry officers to enable them to deal with the challenges of forest management in current times, in particular their ability to work together with forest fringe communities. With the advent of climate change for example, foresters must be equipped with necessary skills and technologies to be able to adapt to the anticipated changes. They should also be trained to understand and implement forest management approaches such as reduced impact logging, sustainable forest management, multiple use forest management, participatory forest management, and community forest management among others which have been found to be useful in other countries.

In addition, just like many crime related issues, Forestry officials need the support of other state security agencies to deal with these illegal activities. The police, customs, and military all have a role to play in the campaign against deforestation and illegal logging. I observed that most logs illegally cut in Upper West Region of Ghana were being transported across to Burkina Faso, through the borders. Training border officials in the identification of illegal logs is required. Government must step up forest protection by ensuring a multi-sectoral approach. Government should also review existing laws to ensure that punishments for illegal logging activities are severe enough to discourage people.

Increasing forest cover?
The only way to regain lost forest is by reforestation or afforestation. Reforestation is to plant trees on land which carried forest within the previous 50 years or within living memory. Afforestation on the other hand is to plant trees on land devoid of forest or land that was deforested in the distant past. The Ghanaian government has been making great efforts to increase the nation’s forest cover through plantations. Since 2000 the Forestry Commission of Ghana has embarked on a national plantation development programme with a target of 20 000 ha a year (FAO 2010). This is to be applauded but should also be done with more participation from local dwellers. Successful schemes such as joint forest management, participatory forest management and community forest management should be introduced and studied. Tree planting could be made easier by encouraging local people to get involved through provision of incentives. Initiatives such as ‘Tree Aid’ provide an example of how such aspirations can be realised.

Conclusion
The protection of the nation’s forest is a collective responsibility of every Ghanaian. Hence every citizen should be a guardian of the remaining trees and be inspired and encouraged to plant trees. Some people argue that trees take too long to grow but I say that it is better to plant today and have it in 50 years than not to plant today and be forced to plant it in 50 years and end up using it in 100 years or more from now. I would like to end with an old Greek proverb which says, “a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in”.

Help prevent deforestation now!

Credit: Guuroh Reginald Tang
Email: [email protected]

Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Dr. James Walmsley of the University of Wales, Bangor-UK 

References
1. FAO 2006 and 2010 reports
2. Owusu, J.G.K, Abeney, E.A, Frimpong, E.A (1999). Workshop for media personnel on forestry and wildlife reporting
3. Fairhead J, Leach M (1998) Reframing Deforestation: Global Analysis and Local Realities –
Cases from West Africa. London: Routledge
4. http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Ghana.ht