The Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Science at the University of Cape Coast is urging the general public to protect Ghana’s wetlands which significantly contributes to the growth of the fisheries sector.
Though essential to human survival, detrimental human activities such as water pollution, wrong settlements, and open defecation have recently harmed the state of wetlands in the country.
Senior Lecturer with the Department, Dr. Paul Kojo Mensah speaking on the need to protect wetlands on ATLFM’s ATLANTIC WAVE on Tuesday said, it is important for residents living around such areas to refrain from rubbishing the place and using it as a place of convenience.
“We must try and have activities that will rewet wetlands because our wetlands are getting drained off,” he said.
Wetlands
A wetland is an area of land covered by water for a period of time and characterized by plants and animals as well as big trees.
One of such wetlands is the Fosu Lagoon located within the Cape Coast Metropolis.
It will be recalled that though Ghana completed and adopted a National Wetlands Conservation Strategy in 1999 as one of the outputs of the Global Environment Facility (GEF)/World Bank-funded Coastal Wetlands Management Project, there is still much to be desired.
According to Dr. Mensah the policy recognizes wetlands as “environmental conservation area and precludes the following physical draining of wetlands water; draining of streams and water causes feeding of wetlands, human settlements and their related infrastructural development on wetlands, disposal of solid waste and effluent in wetlands and the last one is mining in wetlands.”
Responsibility
According to Dr. Mensah, residents of Cape Coast have a major responsibility of taking care of wetlands available in the metropolis.
“Our very life depends on wetlands. The indigenous people of Cape coast have for years depended on the wetlands. The Fetu Afahye depends on wetlands so if it goes now there will be no more Fetu Afahye… So it’s quite dire and we need do something about it,” he intimated.
Dr. Mensah also urged government to ensure that citizens use the wetlands sustainably.
To him, with a national wetland strategy, leadership must be up and doing to safeguard the wetlands dotted across the country.
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Source: Emmanuella Ama Gyamfi/ATLFMNEWS
