Ghana has planted trees on a large scale today in the fight against deforestation. By noon local time, more than 2.5 million of the planned 5 million trees had been planted, the Ghanaian environmental commission reported on social media.
“The exploitation of forests for economic development has not been sustainable in recent years. We must act now,” President Nana Akufo-Addo said just before planting a lignum vitae. Pokhout is a tropical hardwood and this type of tree is known locally as the tree of life, due to its medicinal properties.
Agriculture displaces jungle
According to official statistics, the West African country still has about 1.6 million hectares of jungle. That is a fraction of what it was in the last century: more than 8 million hectares of forest. The trees have mainly given way to agricultural crops. To a lesser extent, mining and logging also play a role in deforestation.
The government claims to want to turn the tide now. Therefore, Green Ghana Day should become a recurring phenomenon. The ambitious goal is to plant around 100 million trees by 2024.
To be able to reach the 5 million in a day, about 7 million tree seeds had been distributed in advance at schools, companies and in parks. In shopping centers in large cities, shoppers were given their own tree planting set.
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