Lecturer calls on gov to protect forest cover
A Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Legon, Rev. Dr. Elias Kwaku Asiamah, has called on the government to pay special attention to the rich natural forest resources of the country, by adopting effective strategies that would help protect the vegetation from destruction.
Rev. Dr. Asiamah stressed that it was important for the government to help divert nature and convert it into wealth, by making judicious use of the numerous plants to the benefit of the nation.
He further noted that it was not enough to only depend on generating foreign income from timber from the forests of the nation.
Speaking to the media and Forestry Commission officials at Jasikan, the Lecturer, who has cultivated much love for nature, said the country lost huge sums of money in felling trees for export, because in so doing, the people were rather deprived from having access to the many medicinal values of the trees being used as timber for export.
Rev, Dr. Asiamah, who is also a Minister of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, protects a big forest at Jasikan, popularly known at the local level as Akrofo Environmental Resource Center, noted that it would be of much economic interest for the government to prune the leaves, bark of trees and roots, as he put it, to package it in a more scientific way for the cure of the many diseases confronting people all over the world by exporting, with assistance from those with profound knowledge in plant medicine like him.
He pointed out that the nation could see significant development if the country takes care of its natural resources, including the vegetation, adding that many of the plants in the nation's forests had the high potency of curing rapid emerging sicknesses like blood pressure, diabetes, and heart diseases among others.