For most local communities in Ghana, traditional farming involving slash and burn method of preparing the farm land is the main way of life, of which they are very protective. But now, members of some predominantly farming communities are beginning to look at their vocation from a different perspective.
They have admitted that farming, animal rearing, and charcoal burning impact negatively on land and other natural resources. According to them these activities, which involve cutting down forests, indiscriminate bush burning and overgrazing, degrade the land, deplete the forests and destroy the environment.
These perceptions were revealed following research conducted in Murugu, Mongnori and Jelinkon near the Mole National Park in the Northern Region; and Zukpiri and some other communities in the Upper West Region.
The research was conducted by Dr. Andrew Kyei Agyare, a Wildlife Expert and focused on these communities because they have formed Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs), to enable them manage and benefit from natural resources particularly wildlife and their habitats outside the reserves.
The research was one of the activities being implemented under the Murugu Mognori CRÈME Society Limited with funding from the Business Advocacy Challenged (BUSAC) Fund.
Findings of the research indicate that community members were also experiencing weather changes such as poor rainfall, floods, drought, and usually hot and dry conditions, resulting in famine and poverty due to water shortage, soil erosion, loss of soil fertility and low crop yields. These, they said, have brought about high cost of food stuffs, stealing of food stuffs, insufficient food to feed the family and diseases.
Consequently, they have adopted traditional coping strategies including keeping food stuffs to fed the family instead of selling them, applying fertilizer to enrich the soil, dry season vegetable farming, pito brewing, shea nut/dawadawa gathering and processing, rearing of poultry, fishing, sale of livestock and remittances from relations in the big cities and abroad. Community members have further resorted to non-traditional livelihood activities such as charcoal production and illegal logging, which they admit have led to increased bush burning and deforestation.
The research findings further revealed that besides having to deal with these issues, community members were facing difficulties associated with income generating activities. The challenges include poor harvest; high costs relating to transportation, implements and labour; low prices of agricultural produce and inadequate storage facilities. Another key challenge is youth rural urban and north south migration.
According to the research findings, community members were of the view that these challenges could be addressed in various ways including enforcement of the appropriate national laws and regulations, enactment, gazetting and enforcing CREMA bye laws to regulate deforestation and other activities that have adverse health and environmental impacts.
These, they noted, should be done concurrently with community education and sensitization on the dangers of cutting down trees and indiscriminate bush burning. Additionally, farmers should be encouraged to adopt good farming practices such as mixed cropping, establish woodlots, and construct and maintain fire belts around the CREMA protected areas.
They identified alternative income generating activities that they could engage in and which may not impact negatively on the land and natural resources. They mentioned establishment of eco-tourism facilities; promotion of vocational enterprises such as tailoring, carpentry and hair dressing; as well as beekeeping and irrigated farming.
The research findings established that most of these alternative income generating activities were already happening in most of the communities that have embraced and formed CREMAs. This is because the CREMA has enabled them to organize themselves for collective action and positioned them to attract support.
For instance, the communities have been receiving technical, logistical and financial assistance from the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, A Rocha Ghana an NGO and its partner the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), SNV a Dutch Development Organisation and “Bees for Barbers†a Canadian philanthropist initiative.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Project has assisted some communities in the Zukpiri CREMA with solar energy facilities and also trained a number of women in mounting and repairing solar panels.
Furthermore, a Solar Water Garden has been established in the area, whereby solar power is used to pump water from boreholes into an overhead tank, then from there distributed to water vegetable farms and also for domestic use.
The National Coordinator of the Project, George Ortsin who confirmed this in an interview, said the CREMA has served as an attraction for the District Assembly to develop the area. Communities now have a major road, solar street lights and a traditional health clinic where traditional health practitioners attend to sick community members.
The research has established that communities that are participating in the CREMA perceive it as “a good and highly beneficial concept that has brought about many livelihood enterprises to enhance household economies…†They however have problems with the setting aside of land as areas for community natural resources reserves, since some family may have lost their original farm lands and given farm lands elsewhere.
Nevertheless, CREMA community members were happy with the assistance they were getting from NGOs and public institutions. For instance the chiefs, elders and people of these communities were convinced that “through the CREMAs jobs would be created, our natural resources will be protected and it will help reduce the rural urban/north south drift of the youth.â€Â
However, the entire objectives of the CREMA such as strengthening governance capacity of local communities to link conservation to development and reduce poverty, promote agro-biodiversity as an important tool for local adaptation and resilience to climate change, integrate sustainable resource management into land use practices and above all exercise management authority and responsibility for community natural resources areas, hinge on the gazetting of CREMA bye laws.
The researcher, Dr. Agyare, agrees with the CREMA communities that the attainment of CREMA objectives would depend on “enforcement of consensual bye laws by the chiefs and elders of the various communities with demonstrated support and unalloyed commitment of the established law enforcement agencies.â€Â
He therefore urged the District Assemblies in which these CREMAs are located – the West Gonja, Sawla-Tuna-Kalba and the Nadowli Kaleo Districts to hasten the process of finalizing and gazetting the bye laws which have already been drafted, “in order to support the local people in their bid to conserve their natural capital for now and the future.â€Â
“Beyond this,†Dr. Agyare’s report concluded, “CREMA constituents need to be supported to broaden their economic bases through adoption of locally feasible innovative livelihood strategies that may not impact negatively on the natural capital in order to forge a meaningful balance between conservation and development.â€Â
It is this idea of the CREMAs ability to forge a meaningful balance conservation and development in ways that economically empower local community members and alleviate poverty that attracted the BUSAC Fund to assist the Murugu Mognori CREMA Society Limited.
In an interview, the BUSAC Fund Manager, Nicolas Jorgensen Gebara noted that the Fund’s interest in assisting the CREMAs of Murugu Mognori, Jinlinkon and Zukpiri, lies in the fact that “we support communities that want to improve their business environments, in ways that preserve their natural resources, enhance their livelihoods and address climate change.â€Â
He explained that what these CREMAs are doing “is establishing a synergy between the public and private sectors,†adding that “it will create the needed buffer zone for the Mole National Park and the CREMAs, that would allow wildlife to expand naturally, while the private sector CREMAs would be enhancing livelihood opportunities.â€Â
Speaking on the importance of the CREMA to wildlife management in the country, the Executive Director of the Wildlife Division, Nana Kofi Adu Nsiah, said, “CREMAs help to bridge the gap between forests and wildlife, by establishing migratory corridors for wildlife, while community members make a living out of natural resources products.â€Â
The author is a writer on environment, climate change and science issues
By Ama Kudom-Agyemang
(The author is a writer on environment, climate change and science issues)
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