Opanyin Agyei Mensah, Chief Farmer of Akwapem, has urged the Ministry of Lands and Forestry to take a serious view of the fast rate at which the forest reserves and rain forests are being
destroyed by chainsaw operators and mining companies in the country.
Opanyin Mensah said it was time the companies involved were tasked to invest heavy amounts of money into the re-afforestation programmes, as well as engage the local people in the communities where they ply their businesses, especially the youth, in tree-planting as a way of creating employment, while at the same time enabling the country to reclaim some of its destroyed forest reserves.
Opanyin Mensah was making these suggestions at a meeting organised by farmers from the communities around Akwapem after a communal labour to fill pot-holes and to repair wooden bridges on the roads which serve some of the
communities.
He said the indiscriminate felling of trees in the forest reserves, especially by chainsaw operators, should be stopped completely, adding that the forest reserves which had been given out to foreign mining companies were of great concern to the people because of the magnitude of degradation caused to the land.
He urged the authorities to look critically at the mining law again and to review some parts of it in order to protect the forest reserves.
The Chief Farmer expressed worry about the rainfall patterns in recent times and warned that if care was not taken to protect the country's
vegetation, food production could not be sustained in the near future.
Opanyin Mensah called for the involvement of chiefs, assembly members and opinion leaders in their various communities for the protection of
forest reserves and water bodies and advocated for a stiffer punishment for those who break the rules and regulations concerning the preservation of forest reserves.
He suggested that the Government should set aside a day in every year for a tree-planting exercise throughout the country during which every citizen should plant at least one tree.