Friends of the Earth Ghana

Friends of the Earth Ghana is a non-religious, non-profit, non-governmental environmental organisation in Ghana (West Africa). Founded in 1986, it is a member of Friends of the Earth International. The current Executive Director is Dr. Theo Anderson who has been in this position since 1990. He served as the Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee of Friends of the Earth International between 1989-1992 and 1998-2001.
Issues
Forests and Biodiversity
Forests
About 10% of the Ghana's land area is covered with forests. Even though they are important for the economy and for the people (the forestry sector has a big impact on the economy and around 70% of the Ghanaians' energy needs are met by wood fuel and charcoal), they are shrinking fast. While Ghana had around 8 million ha of forest at the beginning of the 20th century, the number has dropped to 1,5 - 3 million ha at the beginning of the present century.
Illegal forest practices
According to a Chatham House study from 2010, two thirds of timber production in Ghana was illegal. With corruption being a constant problem in Ghana, as in many developing countries, illegal logging is unlikely to disappear soon. It includes logging without authorization, obtaining concessions by bribing authorities, and logging in protected areas.
Also timber transportation, transfer pricing, and forest processing are subject to smuggling and illegal actions.
Biodiversity
Ghana has a wealth of Biodiversity. Parks and reserves protect the many species that are native to Ghana. But many are threatened due to habitat degradation and loss, overexploitation of species, landuse conversions, pollution of habitats, bush burning by farmers and hunters, climate change, wildfires and poaching.
Climate change impacts include sea level rise leading to salt water intrusion into freshwater habitats and more frequent and severe droughts and floods. Landuse conversions are mainly to large-scale farming and mono-cultural plantations. Also the diversity of some food crop species is declining due to over-utilisation, especially numbers of banana, cocoa and yam species. Forests are over-exploited by logging companies and also for fuelwood and charcoal. Fish species are declining due to over-exploitation as well as the use of illegal practices such as pair trawling. Ecosystem goods and services are declining due to loss of forests, fisheries, farm and grazing lands, watersheds and water sources.
Global Warming
The Global Warming already has and will continue to have a massive impact on the African continent due to widespread poverty, degradation of natural resources, and indirectly also due to corruption and political instability.
Likely impacts include:
* Some water sources will dry up while others are flooded more severly and more often
* Fragile habitats will disappear and less resilient species become extinct
* Desertification and degradation of lands will extend, making more land unproductive and unable to support agriculture
* Cholera and other diseases will become more common than they already are due to their association with floods and droughts
These impacts may lead to more poverty, starvation, social unrest and war over water and other resources, and will cause huge economic costs to African economies.
Climate change is also connected to a number of existing problems in Ghana:
* Poor people can't afford to live somewhere else than in places that are likely to be flooded when water levels rise. Climate catastrophies significantly threaten food security, health and livelihood of poor people due to their lack of adaptive capacity.
* Women in Ghana are, as in most developing countries, poorer due to structural causes and more reliant on natural resources than men. Catastrophies like floods and droughts are likely to endanger the livelihoods of women and their children more than men's.
Environmental Rights
According to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to Ghanaian law, every Ghanaian is entitled to certain fundamental rights, such as the right to clean water to drink and clean air to breathe. Since the Ghanaian law enforcement is weak and corrupted and many communities lack the power and the financial resources to fight for their rights, many environmental rights are constantly abused by foreign corporations. Also the foreign corporate interests that Ghana has always been a target of due to its resource wealth threaten the communities' and peoples' rights because of the favourable conditions given to foreign companies.
Friends of the Earth Ghana particularly cares about:
Rights and logging
Forest communities rely on the forest resources to meet their needs, e.g. of food and medicine. Government and logging companies are threatening their supply by undermining the community's access to them. While the companies are allowed to log and use the local resources, the communities can only get legal access to non-timber forest products by obtaining the government's permits. These are hard to get because of the financial and bureaucratic barriers. This asymmetrical relation harms the communities' life quality and livelihoods.
Rights and mining
The country's benefits from allowing foreign companies to mine in Ghana are very limited due to the lowered taxes and the favourable investment policy. Still, local communities suffer from the impact of mining activities, including:
* Air, land and water pollution from heavy metals, arsenic and other chemicals results to illnesses like tuberculosis and silicosis.
* Polluted drinking water and fish and land contamination endangers the food security in many communities.
* Vast forest areas have been removed to allow for mining activities, reducing the communities' access to their vital resources.
* The communities' land is being sold to multinational companies with little compensation for the communities, leading to land loss and poverty.
* Conflictive relations between the communities and the police, the military and the companies' security have led to dangerous and violent clashes in the communities.
In 2014, Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama admitted that his government was unable to implement the 10% windfall tax after companies threatened to lay off many workers if it did.
Women's Rights
As in many countries, Ghanaian women do not have the same position in the society as men do. Their access to education, credit, land, income and healthcare is reduced. In the majority, Ghanaian women are poor. Given that climate change, diminishing resources, and environmental degradation have the biggest impact on the poor, women face the worst impacts. On the other hand, women have shown to invest more of their income/wealth in their childrens' education and their family's welfare when they are empowered. Friends of the Earth Ghana combines these two characteristics and highlights gender equality in its projects to provide more people with education, healthcare, and food by educating and helping women.
Projects
CiSoPFLEG
CiSoPFLEG is an EU-funded project to improve forest governance towards sustainable forest management in West and Central Africa through collaboration between Ghana, Cameroon, DRC and Côte d’Ivoire. The project is in its third and last year in 2016 and has been successful in strengthening the communities’ position in negotiations with mining companies, organizing the communities to prevent bush fires, and training the communities in independent monitoring of forest operations.
SCIPFLEG
SCIPFLEG is also in its third and last year in 2016. It aims towards improving forest governance by reducing illegal logging and other corrupt practices in the forestry sector. The project has been successful in supporting the communities to adapt a legal way of trading and logging and to recognize corruption.
Conserving Lake Bosumtwe
Lake Bosumtwe is one of the world's six major meteoric lakes and is believed to be 1.3 million years old. Nowadays, the lake’s fish stock has been harmed by corporate fishing, and most of the surrounding forest has been removed. These developments threaten the livelihoods of the local communities. The project has been successful in training children in assessment and monitoring of biodiversity, raising environmental awareness, and in handing over the responsibility for the local resources back to the traditional authorities and the communities.
Conserving the Tafi Atome Wildlife Sanctuary
The Tafi Atome Wildlife Sanctuary is home to many different species, especially to Mona monkeys. Friends of the Earth Ghana helped to produce a map of the sanctuary, organise a voluntary fire brigade, raise environmental awareness, train the locals in organic farming and other livelihood activities, and promoting ecotourism.
Women’s Rights
* Participation in governments: FoE-Ghana is currently conducting a project to increase the capacity and skills of women farmers to advocate for their participation in agricultural and environmental policy and decision making, and to increase the responsiveness of policy makers towards the problems encountered by the women in their farming activities.
* Women and Youth in the Volta Region: FoE-Ghana's Volta Region project includes raising HIV/AIDS awareness, training a hundred unemployed women in batik and fabric design, and rebuilding a school.
* Women and Climate Change in the Brong Ahafo Region: The project aims towards helping women in the Brong Ahafo Region, which is being affected by the encroachment of the savannah and by climate catastrophes, to deal with the consequences of climate change and to improve their farming techniques in order to guarantee better health & food security.
Water and Sanitation
Friends of the Earth Ghana's Water and sanitation project includes:
* raising awareness about the human rights to water, sanitation and other things, and that the District Assemblies must be held responsible for fulfilling those rights
* sharing knowledge with rural communities about the responsibilities of their District Assemblies
* training, assisting and supporting the communities in monitoring the service delivery and the government work

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