The Paramount Chief of Efutu Traditional Area, Neenyi Ghartey VII has asked the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission to stringently enforce policies safeguarding mangroves across the country in order to ward off destroyers.
He said that was the only way sanctions could be effectively applied on offenders to serve as deterrent to others.
Mangroves are trees or shrubs which grow in tidal or coastal swamps, having numerous tangled roots that grow above the ground and form dense thickets.
Neenyi Ghartey VII said this when a team of personnel from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Media Platform on Environment and Climate Change (MPEC), the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission and some journalists paid a courtesy call on him on the sidelines of a mangrove tour recently at Winneba in the Central region.
He said lots of people were oblivious of the importance of mangroves for which reason they misused them instead of conserving them.
Neenyi Ghartey VII said that was what needed a reversal as we could also use mangroves for smoking fishes if they were preserved.
The Paramount Chief of the Efutu Traditional Area underscored that the constant destruction of mangroves in recent times was not the case of old as he could go crab hunting with his friends when they were young under these mangroves.
Neenyi Ghartey VII said his traditional area would not take such activities for granted and would endeavour to do more planting.
Responding to the Chief’s call, the Operation’s Manager of Wetland under the Wildlife Division, of the Forestry Commission, Mr Dickson Agyeman pledged that they would see to the enforcement of policies for the effective protection of mangroves.
Story By: Abigail Arthur, Winneba.
Source: Ghanaian Times
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