The European Union (EU) Ambassador to Ghana, Ms. Diana Acconcia, has led a tree planting exercise in Kumasi, Ghana’s second-largest city, as part of efforts to improve the forest and tree cover.
The programme, held under the auspices of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), was to reinforce global efforts to reduce to the barest minimum the effects of climate change.
It also fell in line with the Assembly’s agenda to restore to the city its former status as the ‘Garden City of West Africa’, a project, which had seen in the last two years the planting of substantial trees of varied species.
Ms. Acconcia, accompanied by the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Mr. Osei Assibey-Antwi, commenced the programme with the planting of a symbolic tree at the Amankwatia cluster of schools, where they educated the youth on the dangers posed by climate change.
“We think that raising awareness would take us to a better future,” the Ambassador remarked.
Climate change, she said, was devastating and a threat to biodiversity and the ecology.
For that reason, the EU had, therefore, evolved many strategies to counter its effects, including collaboration with policy-makers, environmental youth activists and stakeholders to promote a ‘green world’.
Mr. Assibey-Antwi touched on the Assembly’s flagship programme, ‘Keep Kumasi Clean and Green’, saying the project had received massive support from the people.
“The KMA believes that the best possible way to ensure the sustenance of life on earth is to plant more trees,” he told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the side-line of the programme.
The Assembly, he noted, was determined to mitigate the harmful effects posed by the excessive emission of carbon into the atmosphere through the tree planting project.
By Stephen Asante, GNA
