The Deputy National Coordinator of A Rocha Ghana, Daryl Bosu, has called on the government to declare the Atewa Range Forest Reserve a National Park now, citing illegal mining as the biggest threat to Ghana’s forests.
Mr Bosu made the call at a press conference in Accra on Monday, (September 14) organised together with the Concerned Citizens of the Atewa Landscape and Eco-Conscious Citizens.
He said the scale of mining activities in forest areas had increased significantly over the past decade, with even people previously engaged in logging now turning to mining.
“Within the last 10 years, the biggest threat to our forestry business now is mining, legal and illegal,” Mr Bosu said.
He said the rapid destruction of forest cover through mining was a major concern.
“We need to be very much concerned about an activity that can practically destroy a whole forest within a week. And that is what the miners are doing now,” he said.
Mr Bosu clarified that the call for Atewa to be declared a National Park “immediately” does not mean the process can be completed overnight.
He said it means government must act with urgency to ensure that the process of attaining National Park status is completed within the shortest possible time.
“Making a place a National Park is not something we do in a day,” he said. “When we say immediately, we are saying that the state should take the necessary steps and act with urgency to make sure that achieving a National Park status becomes something that we can do within the shortest possible time.”
He stressed that the proposed National Park status should not exclude communities from the process.
According to Mr Bosu, communities, civil society organisations and state institutions working in and around the forest would all have to be involved in determining the details of the process, including how communities can continue to access and benefit from the forest.
He said frameworks for such a process already exist and could be activated if government commits to the designation.
“The blueprints are already there and if the government is very willing and is really interested in making this a National Park now, it can be done,” he said.
A Rocha Ghana said the approximately 26,300-hectare Atewa Forest, gazetted as a protected reserve in 1926, contains the headwaters of the Ayensu, Densu and Birim rivers and more than 99 streams.
The organisation estimates that the forest provides water for more than five million Ghanaians and supports significant biodiversity, including at least 78 globally threatened species.
The groups are also calling for a permanent and adequately resourced security operation, improved logistics for the Forestry Commission and faster prosecution of suspected illegal miners.
They further want alleged information leaks, selective enforcement and possible complicity in illegal mining activities within the reserve investigated
