Paolo Bray further felt that this should also be applied in the fisheries sector, the aim being not only to protect fish stocks from overexploitation, but rather to promote the creation of more marine protected areas.
Ghana’s rapid deforestation has been driven by agricultural expansion (largely for cocoa), timber harvesting for energy, population growth, gold mining, and timber lobbies. Inefficient and poor management of forest resources has, over the years, led to overexploitation; resulting in degraded forests that are more susceptible to wildfires and floods.
Since the early 1990s, Ghana has lost over 30% of its forests, which now cover 21% of the country. With a remarkable 80% of Ghanaians depending on forests for their livelihoods, deforestation has a major impact on communities, hence the need to urgently address the threat. Paolo Bray said: “Traditional leaders have the power to institute control mechanisms, to regulate human activities vis-à-vis the environment. They must be empowered by the government to use their indigenous ecological knowledge to conserve and protect the environmental resources within their jurisdiction.
“Collaboration between traditional and political leaders is the only sustainable solution to prevent environmental degradation in Ghana” he added.
The World Sustainability Organization is a global organization whose main objective is the conservation of ecosystems, aiming to protect critical habitats and globally threatened species, through sustainability certifications – Friend of the Sea and Friend of the Earth and related conservation and awareness projects, it is headquartered in Italy.
