The Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Benito Owusu-Bio, has touted Ghana’s Afforestation agenda dubbed “Green Ghana Day” at the 17th session of United Nations Forum on Forests.
Representing Ghana and the Ministry at the forum on forests, Hon. Benito said in achieving government’s target of planting 20 million trees for the 2022 Green Ghana Project, the Ministry would mobilise key stakeholders such as the security agencies, traditional authorities, media houses, schools and local communities as well as corporate organisations and civil society groups to plant trees on degraded forest landscapes, farm lands, watersheds among others.
The Green Ghana initiative, he said, has become an annual event to significantly increase the forest cover of Ghana, halt forest degradation and substantially contribute to target 1.3 of the Global Forest Goal 1.
He added that as part of the country’s commitment to the achievement of the goals and targets of United Nations’ Strategic plan for forests, Ghana announced her voluntary national contribution last year at the 16th session, which he said would be elaborated in a separate report.
Hon. Owusu-Bio hoped for fruitful deliberations at the forum which is currently on-going in New York in the United States of America.
Also, at the forum with the Hon. Deputy Minister are the CEO of the Forestry Commission, Mr. John Allotey and the Technical Director for Forestry, Mr. Joseph Osiakwan.