News

Greening Sekondi-Takoradi project launched

‘Greening the Sekondi-Takoradi Twin City’, an urban and peri-urban forestry project was launched on Tuesday in Takoradi, to make the oil city greener and also improve the ecosystem of the metropolis.

Being implemented by Goshen Global Vision (GGV) in partnership with the United States Forest Service-International Programme (USFS-IP), the project, according to forestry experts, has become more crucial because trees and forests are vital for healthy, livable and sustainable communities around the world.

Speaking at the launch, the Executive Director of GGV, Mrs Mary Perpetua Kwakuyi, noted that over the years, the city of Sekondi-Takoradi had lost its    greenery due to climate change, over-aging greenery and infrastructural development.

She said the rapid development and urbanisation in the Western Region also necessitated the need for urban forests to help define a sense of place and well-being for dwellers and also make Sekondi-Takoradi greener and healthier for the people.

Mrs Kwakuyi said to achieve these goals, GGV, aims at working with stakeholders on the Western Region landscape to create awareness in the communities about the need to preserve greeneries in the twin city and replant degraded areas for use as recreational parks.

Variety of trees including over 5,000 shade, medicinal, fruit trees and 1,000 coconut trees would be planted along the beaches, all the streets and some selected junior and secondary schools in Sekondi-Takoradi for four years. 

According to Mrs Kwakuyi, the discovery of oil in commercial quantities along the coast of the Western Region had caused the immigration of lots of people from other parts of the country to Sekondi-Takoradi in search of employment in the oil and gas industry, including seeking private opportunities.

The influx of people, she added, had brought with it the scarcity of land “while land owners, in collaboration with entrepreneurs are grabbing every space for construction of residential as well as industrial installations”. 

Mrs Kwakuyi said the project would help in achieving two crucial Sustainable Development Goals; Goal 11 which emphasises on sustainable cities and communities and Goal 13 on climate action.

The Metropolitan Chief Executive for Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA), Anthony K.K Sam, mentioned that protecting the environment was a collective responsibility of all stakeholders and not the political leadership alone.

“We are all involved, who is choking the gutters? It’s the citizenry. Sanitation is not about the politicians alone. We are part and we are more concerned about greening the city with the one child, one tree project from the basic schools up to the tertiary level,” he added.

FROM CLEMENT ADZEI BOYE, SEKONDI

Show More
Back to top button