ECOSYSTEMS RESTORATION PROJECT FOR YARPEI (PAGE 20)

AN ecosystems restoration project has been inaugurated at Yapei in the Central Gonja District of the Northern Region to help improve on agricultural and aquatic life in the area.
Dubbed “The Mid-Volta Ecosystems Restoration, the project also seeks to build on the livelihood patterns of the people by identifying areas of significant cultural values that could be enriched to support the people and also protect the potentials of the basin against destruction from land use.
The basin extends from Daboya in the West Gonja District to Sheri in Central Gonja at the confluence of the Black and White Volta Rivers.
The Regional Advisory, Information and Network Systems (RAINS), a Tamale-based NGO, is facilitating the project with support from the African Biodiversity Network and Artists Project Earth, a UK charity organisation.
As part of the inaugural ceremony, a stakeholders’ meeting comprising representatives of traditional authorities, assembly members, farmers, fishermen and women from communities along the basin was held at Yapei.
Among the issues discussed by the participants were the increasing social and economic changes and challenges faced by the people, the regular droughts and floods and the reduction in farm output and dwindling fish stock and its impact on the people in the area.
The team leader and vice-chairman of the board of RAINS, Mr Bakari Nyari, said there was an urgent need for the reversal of the current state of extinction of the basin's resources to make them more viable, productive and sustainable.
It is, however, important for the people themselves to assume lead roles in identifying and taking responsible actions that would restock fish in the river and also improve on soil fertility and community welfare,” he advised.
Mr Nyari added that under the project, the people would be encouraged to resort to the use of compost manure instead of chemical fertilisers, which, he said, had contributed to the pollution of the water bodies.
According to him, their capacities would also be built in modern agricultural trends while proposing that, fisher folks allowed a fallow period for the breeding of fishes, since that was one of the surest ways of ensuring that aquatic life support organisms were sustained for regeneration.
On behalf of his colleagues, Mallam Issifu Saaka expressed appreciation to the management of RAINS and their collaborators for the project and pledged to offer them the necessary support to ensure its viability in the area.