Ghana loses about twenty percent of its GDP to Soil degradation according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The Head of Natural Resources Programmes at the EPA, Karl Fiate, cautioned that until stronger laws were put in place to curb human activities that threaten biodiversity, Ghana will continue to lose millions of cedis due to this development.
[contextly_sidebar id=”iWGHxQBPHmRKAb0iKvRNXRlK0eJp5xAi”]Speaking to journalists on the side-lines of an Environmental forum, Mr. Fiate called for immediate steps to reverse the trend explaining that Ghana’s biodiversity laws only focused on protecting commercial species neglecting the other biological species.
“The laws do not adequately protect biodiversity in the sense that we look at single species. The laws, if it is the forest we are focusing on commercial species, if it is fish, there are laws that are meant to protect fisheries but it is only looking at the commercial fisheries.”
He also noted that wetlands, outside Ramsar sites, were not protected by any definite regulations.
“Apart from those that are Ramsar sites that are covered by specific regulations, the rest of the wetlands are not covered by any specific regulation. They are just general regulations and general regulations do not protect adequately,” Mr. Fiate said.
Mr. Fiate thus called for the tightening of environmental protection laws so as to better protect the threatened environmental components in Ghana.
“I think that yes, we have wonderful laws given the threat to our biodiversity and our future well-being, we need to look at these laws again and tighten them up.”
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana