For the project to be successful and last, regular monitoring of the trees planted on Green Ghana Day should be implemented.
Ghanaians have, thus, been urged not to turn the Green Ghana Day into an annual ritual, but rather give meaning to its objective of helping to restore the lost environment.
Making the call at an event to mark this year’s Green Ghana Day at Afienya, the National Director of Compassion International Ghana (CIGH), Kobina Yeboah Okyere, said after three years, it was important to make monitoring an integral part of the initiative to ensure the achievement of its afforestation goals.
He said that could be done when people became responsible for the trees they planted by monitoring and nurturing them to survive.
“It is not enough for us to show up each year and organise the tree planting exercise. Like an investment or a project, it is important for us to access the progress of the exercise after three years.
We all know where we plant our trees so we can help by ensuring that the trees we plant survive and do well.
“That is the real impact of the objective of the exercise which is to restore our degraded environment,” Mr Okyere told a gathering of the chiefs and people of Afienya at a mini durbar.
Exercise
Compassion Ghana, a non for profit Christ-centered organisation dedicated to transformative child advocacy and holistic child development, encompassing physical, cognitive, socio-emotional, and spiritual aspects, has since the inception of the Green Ghana Day, been part of the exercise, selecting different areas each year to plant trees.
In the previous exercises, the organisation and its partners joined forces to plant 18,000 seedlings.
This year, it chose Afienya and the exercise attracted the community stakeholders including the Chief of Afienya, Nene Tetteh Afutu III, the District Police Commander of Afienya, Chief Superintendent Emmanuel Nana Ofori, the Minister in Charge of Immanuel Methodist, Afienya, Reverend Raymond Afutu Nartey and Chief Imam of Afienya, Imam Amadu Rufai Alhassan, a team from Compassion Ghana and some community members.
After the exercise, they all came together to plant trees within the community.
Mr Okyere said through its own monitoring, it realised that 8,030 trees out of the 16,670 seedlings planted had survived and were doing very well.
He said with this information, Compassion Ghana had rolled out an elaborate plan to make the nurturing and monitoring an integral part of its exercise.
He further disclosed that Compassion Ghana had set up a goal to plant a tree for each participant enrolled in its programme, which currently stands at over 97,000 individuals.
Chief Superintendent Ofori commended Compassion International Ghana and its church partners for their initiative in monitoring the planted trees.
He encouraged the adoption of this mechanism to ensure accountability in future tree planting exercises. The dignitaries present at the durbar after delivering their remarks, actively participated in the exercise.