World Vision Ghana engages stakeholders to restore degraded land

World Vision Ghana, a Christian development and advocacy organisation, has engaged relevant stakeholders in the Upper East Region as part of efforts to scaling up the Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) approaches to restore degraded forests and landscapes in the region.

The engagement was to showcase the successes of the implementation of the intervention in some districts in the region which had contributed to restore degraded lands and vegetative cover, thereby helping to mitigate the challenges of climate change.

It was also to encourage the mainstreaming of the FMNR concepts into development plans of institutions and advocate integration of the concepts into the country and community land restoration strategies, to promote sustainable agriculture production and attain food and nutrition security among others.

The engagement which brought together all the 15 Municipal and District Chief Executives in the region, the officials of departments of agriculture, experts from the academia, farmers, technical staff of the various Assemblies and CSOs among others also toured some FMNR fields in the Talensi District.

The FMNR is an easy and low-cost land and forest restoration technique used to increase the number of trees in the field without necessarily planting new ones but protecting and managing existing trees and shrubs through pruning to regenerate naturally.

The concept has helped to restore about 750 hectares of degraded lands in the Talensi District between 2009 and 2019 and is being implemented in more than 25 countries globally to fight climate change, poverty and hunger.

Mr Samuel Abasiba, the World Vision Ghana FMNR Project Manager, said since 2009, World Vision Ghana had worked with communities in the Talensi, Garu, Tempane, Bawku West, Binduri and Kassena-Nankana West Districts in the region which had helped to restore degraded lands and improved sustainable agriculture practice among many farmers.

“Many farmlands in this area are degraded and do not support crop production but with the FMNR, the farmers are able to regenerate the lands, restore soil fertility which has improved their crop and livestock production,” he said.

The Project Manager explained that aside from the many benefits the FMNR approach had on the environment and people’s livelihoods, the approach was less expensive to practice as compared to tree planting, due to high cost in purchasing seedlings and prolonged drought in Northern Ghana.

“We have been implementing the FMNR over a decade and we have seen the impact and so, we are hoping that the stakeholders will adopt and mainstream the concept into the development plans so that it can be scaled up to reach the entire region,” he said.

Mr Sumaila Saaka, the Global World Vision FMNR Online Facilitator and Executive Director of Forum for Natural Regeneration (FONAR), an NGO, noted that about 80 per cent of total land area in the Upper East Region had suffered moderate to severe degradation and several hectares of lands had been lost.

He said although tree planting was good, natural regeneration was cheaper and faster and urged the government to incorporate the FMNR approach into the Green Ghana initiative to restore degraded lands, especially in northern Ghana.

The stakeholders lauded the initiative and advocated the concept to be part of the national policies and strategies, to restore the lost vegetative cover of the country.

Mr Tahiru Issahaku Ahmed, the DCE for Bawku West, noted the FMNR had the greatest potentials to addressing climate change and empowering communities and pledged to work to ensure that the concept was mainstreamed into the development plans of the Assembly to be implemented in every community in the district.