Isaac ACQUAH
AFR100 Focal Point, Ghana
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) is a community-led approach to naturally restoring degraded landscapes and ecosystems, and it’s credited with reforesting many millions of hectares of degraded land, globally. FMNR provides many benefits including timber, improved soil quality, and agricultural diversity and productivity, leading to higher incomes and improved health and dietary diversity.
Planting mixed indigenous tree species on degraded forest reserves by the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana under the public-private partnership initiative was accepted by farmers as wind breaks and intercropping system to increase land productivity. It shows show how farmers are involved in the process by allowing them to grow food crops (mostly plantain) along with the tree crops until canopy closure. Under such an arrangement, the farmers benefit from access to farming land in the degraded forest reserves, and also appropriate to themselves the full proceeds from the food crops.
Rehabilitation of natural forests restores biodiversity and climate resilience. These forest areas, today counted into national forest cover have been degraded. Their restoration is being done through tree planting, enrichment and natural regeneration.
Establishment of buffer zones along water bodies such as lakes, wetlands, rivers and/or streams significantly contribute to the national forest cover, biodiversity and it helps in adaptation and mitigation of climate change in the country.
Stakeholder involvement
Ghana has put in place the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) Working Group which has a multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder national and global organization with a mandate to steer the LDN target setting process and promote LDN mainstreaming and implementation. The working group is made of various stakeholders including Government institutions (universities and research institutions), Civil Society Organizations and private sector. The main stakeholders are Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Forestry Commission (FC), Ministry of Land and Natural Resources (MLNR), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSRI), Water Resources Commission, Energy Commission, National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP), Hat of Foundation (HATOF), Water Research Institute, Friends of the Earth, Eco Planet Bamboo Ltd, Form Ghana Ltd and World Bank (Environment and Natural Resources).
A coordinating mechanism/platform
There are several projects and programs, some on going and other in preparation in Ghana, which share the features of LDN transformative projects and programs. The five common features are: i) contribute to the achievement of LDN targets; ii) deliver multiple benefits; iii) scale-up what works; iv) enhance national capacities; and v) leverage innovative financing, including private sector. The coordination mechanism was established to implement the LDN targets cross sectors and LDN working group will ensure the oversight of this mechanism. The projects steering committees will monitor implementation and report backs to the LDN working group for decision making and way forward.
Capacity building
Institutional weaknesses identified by LDN working group include: i) weak capacity for dealing with land issues, ii) inadequate trained manpower in sustainable land and water management (SLWM); iii) duplication of roles and responsibilities among institutions with, sometimes conflicting mandates for land management and utilization; and v) over-dependence on donor funds for in-country management of natural resources. The Opportunities for improving capacity of the institutional environment include; iv) benefits from training in SLM and LDN; ii) buying into the principles and processes of LDN to facilitate coherence of sector policies /strategies and mandates for enhanced coordination of SLM activities; iii) attraction of investment from local businesses and international funding sources and programme for SLM activities; iii) attraction of investment from local businesses and international funding sources and programmes for SLM activities.
Partnership
Since the development of Land Degradation Neutrality Target Setting Programme (LDN TSP), a partnership initiative implemented by the Secretariat and the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD, with support of the national, international institutions and Funding organizations. Partnerships in LDN implementation is very important to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality together will all the partners. The policy makers will closely work with technical actors and private sector to alleviate challenges of land degradation and attain the core objective of country neutral to land degradation by 2030.
Ghana stands to gain from LDN’s multiple environmental and societal benefits, which help to address issues of land degradation such as food insecurity, income equality, poverty and resource availability. It further provides significant benefits for mitigation and adaptation to climate change by 2030.
Priority Interventions:
Ghana's Northern Savannah Ecological zone forms part of the West Africa Sahel region and is highly vulnerable to environmental degradation and climate change due its geographic location and the dependence of its population on natural resources, rainfed agriculture and transhumance systems
This area was identified as one of the priority zones which needs immediate attention under the Ghana Strategic Investment Framework (GSIF) for Sustainable Land Management (SLM)
The area has rich biodiversity, which is threatened in many areas as a result of the loss of important ecosystems and habitats
Transitional and forest zones of Ghana are being threatened by mining, charcoal production and unsustainable agricultural activities
