Mr Jaap Boss, leader of the Blue Deal Water Project, has urged environmental chiefs at Bongo in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region, to champion activities that will help improve quality of water systems and save the environment from pollution.
He said traditional Authorities played a key role in the sustainable management of land and natural resources especially at the community level and therefore sensitizing their constituents on tree planting and protection of water resources was crucial.
Mr Boss made the call at the inauguration of Traditional Authorities, known in the local parlance as ‘Environmental chiefs,’ earmarked for roles in protection of the environment.
It was attended by the Blue Deal Water Project Team from Holland, the White Volta Basin Secretariat, The Paramount Chief of the Bongo Traditional Area, Representatives from the Regional House of Chiefs, and the Bongo Municipal Assembly among.
The enskinment of environmental chiefs was initiated by the Paramount Chief of the Bongo Tr
aditional area, Naba Salifu Alemyaarum, and all sub chiefs in the area were inaugurated as environment chiefs, to promote good environmental practices.
The Water Resources Commission (WRC) and its partner, Blue Deal Project, have since 2019 implemented Integrated Water Resources Management interventions along the White Volta Basin as part of efforts to protect the water bodies and facilitated capacity building, water governance and community sensitization programmes in the Bongo District.
Other areas engaged include Nabdam, Talensi, Bolgatanga East and Kassena Nankana, within the Kpasenkpe Sub basin, which was activated among other Basins, to initiate activities to improve the water resources.
In the Kpasenkpe Sub-basin, interventions such as reforestation activities in the Vea Dam Catchment, spearheaded by Tree Aid and facilitated by Blue Deal Project, is ongoing while a sanitation project at Gowrie senior high technical school is being implemented.
The engagement over years and with commitment of Tradit
ional Authority, has seen commitment to providing a range of recommendations and interventions to support the implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management in the White Volta Basin.
Mr Jesse Kasapoe, the Principal Basin Officer of the WRC charged the environmental chiefs to be stewards and act as custodians of trees in their various communities which would contribute a lot to a healthy environment.
Mr Kasapoe indicated that the basin office would guide the organisation towards a sustainable future of the environment and charged it, ‘to let us all work together combining traditional knowledge with modern practices to achieve a shared vision of a resilient and prosperous White Volta Basin.
Source: Ghana News Agency