Natural disaster: Let's protect Ramsar sites, restore degraded lands —Expert

Mr Dickson Yaw Agyeman, the Operations Manager at the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission has warned of looming natural disaster in Accra if encroachment of Ramsar sites are not halted and degraded areas restored.

 “Each of the five Ramsar sites is unique and plays a critical role in that ecology. Aside from providing ecosystem services, being a home to biodiversity, some serve as the 'shock absorbers' of their respective areas by absorbing flood water,” he noted.

 Ramsar sites are wetlands set aside for conservation because of their international importance according to set criteria and managed to provide maximum benefits to the local communities living within and around the area. 

There are five designated coastal wetlands in Ghana. They are Keta Lagoon Complex, Songhor, Sakumo, Densu Delta and Muni Lagoon.

Mr Agyeman, told the Ghana News Agency that if the infrastructural development at Sakumono Ramsar Site for instance was not stopped, many homes and offices would wash away due to rain run-off from parts of Ashaiman.

 He said major among the threats to wetlands was political interference over the years in the work of the officials designated to protect the areas.

Out of the five wetlands, he said the Sakumono Ramsar site was the only one that had been formally acquired by the State and compensation paid, due to its importance.

He said, however, more than 75 per cent of the total area had been encroached.

 “Any management measure you want to take is foiled by the political class. Some of the key politicians who should have helped the Commission protect the wetlands have compromised their positions. Because of that the law is there but it cannot bite,” he said. 

“As a country, we decided to forget about the wetlands by giving it out for development and suffer the consequences. Remember it is the vulnerable in society who will suffer the most. There will be so much to lose if the right steps are not taken,” he added. 

Mr Agyeman said sometimes, officers were afraid to discharge their duties due to threats, adding that, “Wetlands serve everyone so its protection must be the concern of all, not only Wildlife Division.”

He noted that one other challenge in managing wetlands was the massive pollution of the area through waste disposal and channeling of waste water to the sites.

 He said though the Owabi Wildlife Sanctuary Ramsar Site in the Ashanti Region was supplying potable water to residents in the Kumasi metropolis, the site was under severe pressure from growing human settlements, intensive farming and pollution.

“As a country, we should have increased the number of wetlands from six to 15. This will have earned the country so much money through carbon credit, reduce high levels of pollution, create jobs, boost local fishing economy, address rural and urban migration,” he said.

 Mr Agyeman noted that the carbon sequestration, a method of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the goal of reducing global climate change could earn the country billions of dollars and it might not need to borrow from outside.

 He said the Wildlife Division had commenced a campaign to plant more mangrove in a bid to restore some of the areas that had been degraded.

 About 75 per cent of the earth's land areas are degraded; wetlands have been hit hardest, with 87 per cent lost globally in the last 300 years – according to Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 

Lands that have either become deserts, are polluted, or have been deforested and converted to agricultural production are also the main causes of species extinctions.

If the trend continues, 95 percent of the earth's land areas could become degraded by 2050. That would potentially force hundreds of millions of people to migrate as food production would collapse in many places, the report said.

GNA