By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
A project to restore the entire destroyed ecology of Ghana particularly through illegal mining commonly known as ‘galamsey’ has kick-started.
The project, which is an initiative of Carbonpura BVI, a US-based organization concerned with climate change, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity management in partnership with Ghana’s Environmental Protection Authority, EPA to be undertaken within a 25-year period with an annual expenditure of one billion Dollars.
The Vice President of Carbonpura BVI, Dr. Fred Bedzra, who made this known in an interview with Correspondent Nicholas Osei-Wusu in Kumasi, disclosed also that, it is based on a successful eight-month feasibility studies, which spanned March 2024 to January this year.
The project is to cover seven of Ghana’s administrative regions in the southern and middle zones affected by the ‘galamsey’ menace.
“We’ll be reclaiming the illegal mining sites, mined out sites. We’ll remediate the soil, we’ll put in things that’ll make the soil viable and then we’ll grow plants on those lands. Some of them we’ll cash crops, some of them we’ll grow trees….then you see the polluted water bodies, we’ll use latest technologies to remediate the water bodies, that’s to clean up the water”, he emphasized.
According to Dr. Bedzra, the project will be financed by international sources such as Carbon Credit, Climate Fund, private climate investors as well as the climate impact grant of the University of Cambridge from its Darwin Fund with the Green Bond responsible for raising the projected amount.
He said, through the feasibility studies, all badly affected forest cover and communities through ‘galamsey’ activities have been mapped.
Dr. Bedzra mentioned the Ashanti, Eastern, Volta, Western, Western North Ahafo regions as the beneficiary regions where polluted water bodies will be cleaned of heavy metals such as mercury, lead and cyanide to restore the water sources to their original statuses.
Additionally, the communities will benefit from some critical social amenities such as school and healthcare facilities as well as alternative potable water sources.
The Carbonpura BVI Vice President disclosed again that the project, Ghana’s EPA will be empowered with financial,logistical and technological resources to effectively monitor and protect Ghana’s environment, particularly the forest covers and expressed high optimism that, after the project implementation period, Ghana would regain her lost forest and ecological cover from the ravages of illegal mining and other negative practices.
Dr. Bedzra said, in addition to reclaiming galamsey-ravaged ecologies with about 500 million trees and cash crops, the project will also include what he called ‘soil remediation’ initiative in the Northern and Savanna regions in northern Ghana to help protect the land from destruction either from harmful human activities or natural occurrences.
In all these initiatives, the project plans to also empower women and youth economically toward reducing their level of vulnerability to the harsh impacts of the ecological destruction.
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