<<Print>>

Stories about the destruction of the environment in Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions could be summed up as callous, wicked and selfish. Widespread bush burning and logging, otherwise known as chainsaw operation, is depleting the environment in the three northern regions, worsening the already erratic rainfall pattern and destroying arable lands. The phenomena is leading to abysmal poverty, hunger, malnutrition and unemployment, compelling the youth, mostly young girls to migrate to the southern sector of the country for non -existent jobs. For instance the land stretching along the road from Kintampo through Techiman and Buipe in the Central Gonja District, all the way to Tamale Metropolis has been burnt. The same situation can be found at Sege; a town between Ada in the Greater Accra Region and the Volta Region, where vast tract of land has been burnt. Economic trees such as sheanut and teak are burnt down by bushfires leading to loss of resources valuable in local communities. Large scale and indiscriminate logging activities are taking place by highly placed persons in the society at West Gonja, Central Gonja and the North Gonja districts in the Northern Region, leading to the depletion of large span of forest reserves. The excessive heat the area had experienced for the past 10 years had led to the incidence of Cerebral-Spinal Meningitis (CSM). Agnes Nigari, an 18-year-old student of Yendi Senior High School, died of CSM in March this year. She complained of stiff neck and pains and passed away in the evening. The Northern Regional Directorate of Ghana Health Services said a total of 75 confirmed cases of the disease were reported in the first quarter of the year from four districts. In 2013, CSM killed 10 people out of the 146 cases reported in the region. The disease is common in March and April every year. These needless deaths confirm how climate change affects people especially the vulnerable in the society. Experts say degradation of the environment contributes to climate change, which has adverse effect on human and animal health, social integration as well as the economic well-being of the people. Mr Ibrahim Atinga, a farmer at Buipe said uncontrolled bush burning has destroyed the farmlands of many farmers in the area and affected their source of livelihood. Mr Abu Iddrisu, Northern Regional Manager of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Tamale said bush burning, no matter how it was caused is illegal. According to the EPA any form of abuse of the environment contravenes Act 490. The law disallows anybody from setting up fire in the bush and mandates stakeholders like Ghana National Fire Service, the EPA and the district assemblies to collaborate and ensure its enforcement. Mr Iddrisu noted that burning of bushes is a developmental problem, which has a lot of negative implication on the progress of the nation. Such activities, he said result in the destruction of vegetation, wildlife, aquatic life, breading sites, reduce the chemistry of the soil and causes soil erosion. It also destroys oxygen cycle, and reduces food crops. According to, Mr Iddrisu, most species suffer reductions in populations during or immediately after a fire. Others may survive the fire, but die shortly afterwards due to predation by other species and/or through shortages of food. For instance many insects and spiders are killed, especially in a high intensity fire that destroys the bark and litter layer in which they live. Bushfires also have biological, chemical and physical effects on soils. The extent of these effects is dependent on the fire's intensity and the resulting temperature of the soil. Generally, only the top few centimetres are affected as they are subjected to the highest temperatures. It causes biological effects such as sterilisation or death of living tissue within the soil. Higher soil temperatures greater than 100�C may alter soil chemical structure, changing the amounts and availability of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia. These soil changes, combined with ash from the fire, may cause an ash-bed effect, increasing the fertility of the soil. However, these nutrients are relatively soluble, and may be rapidly washed from the site by rain. These nutrients combined with the soil and ash -more readily weathered after burning - then find their way into streams where both water chemistry and turbidity (light blocked by suspended sediment) may be changed substantially. This in turn impacts on aquatic ecosystems. On the economy there was enough evidence to show that indiscriminate burning of bush contributed to the reduction of the Growth Domestic Product by 1.5 per cent in 2009. Food production in the Northern Region was found to have dropped because once the vegetation on the land was burnt, the micro-organisms that make up the soil ecosystem were damaged, rendering the soil less fertile immediately after the fire, and reducing crop yields. The yet to be launched climate change policy recognises that climatic changes will influence the range of some infectious disease vectors, increasing the incidence of diseases carried in the water, air, and food including CSM. The draft National Climate Change Policy of Ghana states that, �Climate change has become one of the biggest challenges of this century, and as a global challenge requires global solutions. The threat of climate change is multidimensional and its impacts transcend national borders. Projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicate that if emissions continue to rise at the current pace, the world will be faced with a disastrous future in the form of sea-level rise, shifts in growing seasons, loss of biodiversity, and an increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather conditions; such as heat waves, storms, floods and droughts. In all these cases, developing countries, particularly those in Africa and generally the poor and marginalised, will be those most affected. The economy of Ghana is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its impact on key sectors such as health, energy, agriculture, infrastructure, water resources, land, fisheries and forestry. One of the challenges identified by the draft policy is inadequate national data to provide complete and reliable information on the impacts of climate change on health such as CSM.