WACAM, CEIA And CEPIL Kick Against Government Decision To De-classify Portions Of Achimota Forest To People To Put Up Residential Properties
Wacam together with Centre for Environmental Impact Analysis (CEIA) and Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) has strongly kicked against the decision of the successive governments to de-classify portions of Achimota Forest in the Greater Accra Region to people and organisations to put up residential and other properties.
Freeman Koryekpor Awlesu Greater 
Wacam together with the Centre for Environmental Impact Analysis (CEIA) and the Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) has strongly kicked against the decision of the successive governments to declassify portions of Achimota Forest in the Greater Accra Region for people and organizations to put up residential and other properties.
According to them, the Achimota Forest is the only green space to absorb the pollutants emanating from urban Accra, and that the government decided to give the portions of the forest the to private people to put up residential and other properties tend to affect the ecological integrity of the remaining forest reserve.
They noted that the Achimota Forest Reserve was created in the 1930s and should be allowed to serve the purpose for which it was created.
The Wacam, CEPIL, and CEIA further called on the government to enforce its directives to stop granting exploration rights to companies in the country within protected areas.
The three organizations made the call in a joint statement to mark World Environmental Earth Day.
This year's World Environment Day (WED) is being celebrated under the theme, ‘Only One Earth."
The theme is more appropriate given the fact that man-made activities have destroyed the very ecosystem and its services that provide the foundation for human survival. It also re-echoes the fact that we have only one earth without any substitute.
In Ghana, for example, the decline of biological resources has been evident at the turn of the century. It has been estimated that the total forest cover of Ghana has reduced from 88,000 km2 in 1938 to between 15,800 km2 and 17,200 km2 at present.
A study by the World Bank (2002) has revealed that Populations of wildlife species within the savannah have dwindled as a result of increased human activities such as inappropriate farming practices, road construction, bush burning, and deforestation.
The reduction in forest cover has resulted in habitat loss which is important for the maintenance and protection of biological diversity.
In this regard, the Wacam, CEPIL, and CEIA used the occasion of the World Environment Day celebration to bring out some of the challenges facing our planet earth in terms of proper management, control of deforestation
and degradation.
According to Wacam, CEPIL and CEIA, they are unhappy that the government is engaging in policy contradictions that violate national laws, visions, and regulations, and demand that government should as a matter of urgency revoke the mining rights granted to all mining companies in the country that are mining in forest reserves of Ghana and to take a policy decision not to permit mining in forest reserves.
