Key stakeholders in the Nabdam District have thrown their weight behind the Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) approach as a sustainable solution to restoring degraded lands, improving livelihoods and strengthening food security in the area.
According to them, the FMNR approach, which promotes the regeneration and management of naturally occurring trees and shrubs, was more suitable for the fragile ecology of the district than relying solely on conventional tree planting.
The stakeholders comprised the Forestry Commission, Department of Agriculture, traditional authorities, the Nabdam District Assembly, community leaders and development partners, among others.
They made the commitment during a stakeholder review and baseline dissemination meeting organised under the FMNR Heritage Project, being implemented by World Vision Ghana, a Christian non-profit organisation, in partnership with the Centre for Community Development Initiatives (CODI), a non-government organisation.
The two-year project, funded by the European Union through the European Forest Institute (EFI) under the Sustainable Forest and Cocoa Programme, seeks to restore 1,500 hectares of degraded land while improving food security and livelihoods in the Nabdam District.
One of the major findings of the baseline survey was that only 76 hectares of land had been restored in the district, while only about 8.5 per cent of households were food secure, highlighting the urgent need for interventions to improve livelihoods.
Speaking at the meeting, Mr Rasheed Imoro, the Nabdam District Director of the Department of Agriculture, described the baseline findings as a wake-up call for all stakeholders to intensify efforts to protect the environment.
He said the district’s unique ecological conditions required an approach that prioritised indigenous tree species already adapted to the local climate.
“We are calling on environmental partners that whenever there is a policy concerning tree planting, we should consider farmer-managed natural regeneration because some of the species brought from elsewhere do not survive in our terrain,” he said.
Mr Imoro noted that preventing bushfires, indiscriminate felling of trees and illegal mining, while promoting indigenous regeneration, would significantly improve the environment and agricultural productivity.
He added that integrating FMNR with climate-smart agricultural practices such as composting, crop rotation and reduced dependence on inorganic fertilisers would help restore soil fertility and improve crop yields.
Mr Michael Manor, the Nabdam District Forest Range Manager of the Forestry Commission, said the project had come at the right time to reverse years of environmental degradation in the district.
He appealed to traditional authorities, religious groups, schools and communities to champion environmental restoration campaigns and enforce local by-laws to protect economic trees, particularly shea trees, from illegal harvesting.
He identified charcoal production, firewood harvesting, sand winning, bush burning and illegal mining as some of the major drivers of land degradation in the district.
Mr Francis Tobig, the Nabdam District Chief Executive, said the FMNR approach offered a practical and sustainable means of restoring degraded landscapes because it focused on nurturing naturally occurring vegetation that had already adapted to the local environment.
He observed that many tree-planting campaigns had recorded low survival rates, making it necessary for government and stakeholders to combine tree planting with natural regeneration.
Mr Tobig disclosed that the District Assembly, in collaboration with the Forestry Commission, intended to institute an award scheme to recognise communities and institutions with the highest tree survival rates to encourage proper tree management.
Mr Jonas Bugri, the FMNR Heritage Manager at World Vision Ghana, said the meeting was to review the project’s first six months of implementation and share findings from the baseline assessment with stakeholders to strengthen collaborative implementation.
Mr Bugri stressed that the success of the project depended on the active participation of farmers, traditional leaders, district authorities and all implementing partners, adding that FMNR had a higher survival rate than conventional tree planting and calling for collective efforts to protect the environment.
Mr Julius Agolisi, the Project Manager of CODI, said the baseline findings had provided critical information that would guide interventions under the project and enable stakeholders to collectively address the causes of land degradation.
Source : GNA
