Restoring greenery of a pounded city - Will KMA succeed this time?

On the way from my house in Kumasi to the funeral of ace sports broadcaster, Christopher Opoku, at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) last Saturday morning,  I chanced on a  tree planting exercise being undertaken by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) at Atasemanso.

It was the first step in yet another attempt by the assembly to rebuild the city’s lost vegetation as well as guard the communities from natural calamities, with the support of residents and other organisations.

The late Opoku was a colleague who worked at Luv FM in Kumasi during my early years as Graphic correspondent in Kumasi and it was fitting to go and pay my last respects to the young man who died aged 41.

Atasemanso shares boundary with Konkromase where my house is located, and due to my interest in matters about the environment, I stopped briefly to observe the exercise before proceeding to the funeral grounds.  

The Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Osei Assibey Antwi,  the Chief of Atasemanso, Nana Owusu Barima III, and the Executive Director of Friends of Rivers and Water Bodies, an environmental NGO, Nana Dwomoh Sarpong, were in the thick of affairs.

Loss of greens

The tree planting exercise quickly reminded me of the unacceptable loss of the greens of Kumasi in the last three decades. At the peak of its enviable image as the Garden City of West Africa, at least 70 per cent of the city had green cover.

Today, Kumasi has fallen from grace and the environmental consequences of the reduction in the green cover has been tremendous.

Urbanisation, failure of the KMA to enforce its bye-laws on environment, indiscriminate sale of lands by some chiefs, poor maintenance culture and the unacceptable attitude of the people towards the environment have all combined to deplete the city of its greenery.

Otumfuo concerned

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has never hidden his concern for the loss of the green areas of Kumasi.

While leading an exercise to rid the Kumasi metropolis of filth in November 2014, the Asantehene is reported to have called on authorities to work hard to restore the area to its Garden City status.

“Kumasi used to be called the Garden City of West Africa because the residents and all people concerned were responsive to environmental sanitation issues, but now things have changed; our streets and drainage system are constantly being littered and turned into dumping sites while other negative practices also cause nuisance to biodiversity,” he is quoted by the GNA as saying.

In its quest to get Kumasi back to its glorious days, the KMA in 2014 launched the Kumasi Urban Forestry Project dubbed :"Me and My Tree" with the objective to plant one million trees by the year 2017 using schoolchildren.

The exercise, which was supported by the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG) and the Energy Centre of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), now belongs to history as it could not achieve much results.

New journey

It is in this regard that last Saturday's tree planting exercise, which the KMA says is the start of a fresh journey to restore the city to its former status as the Garden City of West Africa, is refreshing.

The exercise, I was told, was organised in collaboration with the Friends of Rivers and Water Bodies, an NGO, and the Environmental sub-Committee of the assembly.

Tree seedlings were supplied by the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG), which had some of its  representatives present to monitor the exercise.

According to Mr Assibey Antwi, a total of 1,000 trees of various species, which are environmentally friendly, will be planted within the Nhyiaeso sub-metro.

He added that the KMA, under his leadership, would do everything possible to green Kumasi in order to enhance the well-being of the people.

Consequently, he said the assembly would increase its engagement with residents on a regular basis to sensitise them to the benefits of tree planting.

Mr Assibey Antwi also urged the people to join the campaign to help the KMA achieve its objectives.

The Chief of Atasemanso, Nana Owusu Barima, lauded the MCE and the assembly for being environmentally conscious and appealed to traditional authorities to strive to give their backing to the noble project.

For his part, Nana Dwomoh Sarpong advocated stiffer punishment for those who flouted environmental sanitation bye-laws.