District Assemblies have been urged to mainstream tree planting and other environmental enhancement measures, into their medium-term development plans (MTDP), to curb environmental degradation.
    
The assemblies are also being encouraged to take environmental issues in their districts seriously by allocating funds to their District Environmental Management Committees (DEMCs), to enable them to effectively handle environmental issues in their areas.
     
Mr Abu Iddrisu, Northern Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made the call at the regional launch of this year's "World Environment Day," at Moglaa in the Savelugu/Nanton District. The celebration was on the theme: "Plant a tree - prevent global warming."
     
Mr Iddrisu appealed to the assemblies to incorporate tree planting programmes into schools and other public areas to protect the environment and public property.
     
The assemblies should also encourage private-public partnership geared towards sustained action oriented environmental management initiatives.
     
The Regional Director said it was only by taking such actions that the assemblies would be in a position to enact and enforce bye-laws on the control of tree felling, deforestation and bushfires.
     
Mr  Iddrisu noted that tree felling in the Northern Region continues to decimate huge acres of tree cover annually, resulting in serious environmental consequences such as the erratic rainfall patterns, drought and increasing temperatures.
     
He said between 1990 and 2007, temperatures in the Northern Savannah ecological zone had increased significantly by a margin of five per cent, while the desert also spread at an annual rate of 6,000 kilometres.
     
He emphasised that there was a direct linkage between tree cutting, environmental degradation and poverty. "The poor are often tempted to exploit the natural resources, including trees to meet their immediate needs, but in doing so they deplete these resources, and hence destroy the very resource base on which they depend, thereby perpetuating poverty," he said.
    
Mr Iddrisu said the EPA's emphasis on tree planting as a major environmental enhancement measure was to ensure that environmental degradation was minimised in order to reduce poverty.
    
Source: GNA
Posted: 21/08/08