Mr Benjamin Marfo, Atwima-Mponua District Manager of the Business Advisory Centre (BAC) of the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), said this is essential since the availability of land resources has become vital to the sustenance and socio-economic development of the people.

“We risk losing all our treasured natural resources if we do not resist being overtaken by greed as a people”, he said adding that protecting the environment is a shared responsibility.

Mr Marfo was speaking to the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a district consultative meeting at Adobewura, held to discuss the effects of illegal small-scale mining on the communities and find ways of improving the livelihood of the people.

Participants were drawn from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) and Association for Small Scale Industries, as well as small-scale mining associations, farmers, traditional authorities, media and district assembly

It was sponsored by the Rural Enterprises Programme (REP) and facilitated by the BAC with the aim to sensitize mining affected communities to fully participate in its alternative livelihood and employable skills training programmes for their wellbeing.

The training programmes, all funded by the REP and also community-based, include fish, fruit, cassava, oil palm, cocoa husk, soyabean and groundnut processing, traditional catering , salt production and mushroom cultivation.

The rest are bakery, bee keeping, beauty care and fashion designing, guinea fowl and rabbit rearing.

Mr Marfo said the beneficiaries would also be equipped with knowledge in entrepreneurship, basic marketing and customer relations, general business and basic financial management, marketing, business planning and management, welding and fabrication.    

The meeting comes in the wake of the government’s recent ban on illegal small-scale mining which has seen the many youth engaged in such activities being unemployed.

Substantial land mass in the district had been destroyed as a result of illegal small-scale mining, and this has had its toll on the people as their main livelihood depended on farming.

The BAC District Manager disclosed that the REP has over a decade been instrumental in helping to alleviate poverty and also create wealth amongst the people through its community-based training programmes.

The programme, he said, which operated under four key thematic areas, namely access to business development services, technology transfer, access of SMEs to rural finance and institutional development, had helped to bring prosperity to the people.