[ad_1]
Company News of Thursday, January 24, 2019
Source: ghananewsagency.org
2019-01-24
Professor Alfred Apau Oteng-Yeboah
Retired Professor, Department of Plant and Environmental Biology at the University of Ghana, Legon, Professor Alfred Apau Oteng-Yeboah, said he is concerned about the fact that Atewa, a biodiversity area of Global significance with multiple benefits and great potential for ecotourism, is one of the natural forests should be exploited in exchange for the 2 billion Chinese dollars acquired by China for the infrastructure development across the country.
Although there is no problem with the national development infrastructure, as the government proposes it as a goal for money, it has a problem with the inclusion of money. Atewa in this agreement.
In an article developed on this subject, Professor Oteng-Yeboah considers Atewa as sacred and as a total incarnation of the soul and spirit of the Akyem Abuakwa people, which it is appropriate to protect.
"Why should a valuable, unique and priceless site like Atewa be destroyed? and who will explain the water and the endemic plants and animals, many of which still had to be discovered and named scientifically?
"Who will follow the removal of rocks prior to our present age, mark them and study them to account for their history? Who will oversee the removal and transport of excavated soil from the mountain and will ensure that these are only bauxite deposits that are removed but no diamonds or gold? Who will report and who will authenticate the value of excavated soil? He asked.
Mr. Oteng-Yeboah, former Chair of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), noted that "there was many questions to ask whose answers might never be found and that he was aware of the work being done on the badessment of Atewa's ecosystem in terms of its contribution to the well-being of human being, which far exceeds any destructive and unsustainable economic enterprise that would involve the removal of the mountain. "
He said that was where the precautionary principle enshrined in Agenda 21, forerunner of the current 2030 World Agenda and the African Union 2063, should be invoked.
He said that what the Ghanaian should know, is that once the forest is harvested; the contributions made by this natural resource to the population of Akyem Abuakwa and Ghana in general will be permanently lost.
The retired professor said Ghanaians should be informed that no jobs will be created by mining and that there is nothing scientific mining without destruction, wrongly cited by some government officials .
He added that studies conducted by colleagues from the Birim, Densu and Ayensu basins in the eastern and central regions revealed significant land degradation, pollution and siltation of rivers and streams, which have exacerbated the extreme poverty of local people who subsist from peasant farming changes in the landscapes.
Professor Oteng-Yeboah, former Chair of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice to the United Nations Convention, said that the climate protection package that the Akyem Abuakwa people have benefited from over the years ago, with the presence of the mountain Atewa contributing to climate regulation, was now threatened.
He said the scenarios foreshadow a bleak future: a place that was once a thriving production of socio-ecological landscapes was becoming a zero production area.
Professor Oteng-Yeboah has appealed to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and her cabinet, many from the region, to reconsider Atewa's future and remove it from the list for exploitation.
He believes his call, based on scenario forecasts, will receive urgent attention, adding, "I expect that in two or three decades, our current generation would have left the scene and the new generation has taken over. will be in total desolation. "
"It will not be easy for them to survive. We would not have succeeded in respecting the principles of sustainable development, of which Nana Sir Ofori Atta I, Okyenhene, vigorously defended the beginnings in many of her writings and speeches to the citizens of this country.
Learn more about Professor Oteng-Yeboah
Professor Oteng-Yeboah also received the MIDORI World Award for Biodiversity in 2014. He was part of the group that initiated the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science and Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services).
He is Chair of Ghana's National Biodiversity Committee.
Former member of the GEF Council representing Coastal States of West Africa, former Chair of the Standing Committee of the UNEP Convention on Migratory Species and former Vice-Chair of the CITES Standing Committee.
Source link
