NKOSEC Foundation to protect Volta Lake with 19,000 trees

Past students of the Nkonya Senior High School (NKOSEC) in the Biakoye District of the Oti Region have embarked on a project to plant some 19,000 trees along the Volta Lake enclave as an environmental sustainability measure.

The commemorative exercise is in line with the government’s Green Ghana programme to ensure the mass planting of some five million trees nationwide on June, 11.

The past students under the NKOSEC 93 Foundation said their targeted area was informed by the need to protect the lake from the devastating effects of deforestation.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of the launch of the programme, the Executive Secretary of the NKOSEC 93 Foundation, Mr Frank Yirenkyi, said, "we are trying to make sure that we increase the activity of tree planting in those areas in order to improve vegetative cover".

Volta Lake

Stating that the significance of a national asset such as the Volta Lake could not be overstated, he said, "This is the source of our electricity, so we need to protect this national asset".

The group has so far engaged in other socially progressive activities in the district, including starting a bee keeping project as an economic activity for the teeming unemployed people in the area.

The District Chief Executive for Biakoye, Ms Comfort Attah, commended the efforts of the group and added that it was a testament to the need for collaboration in order to ensure the progress of the national development agenda.

Ms Attah noted that the coastal areas of the district were gradually experiencing excessive tree felling and bush fires and had also become attractive grazing grounds for cattle.

"In this collaboration, we are going to make sure that anybody who cuts a single tree plants more than they fell," she stated as one of the measures towards addressing the menace.

The Director, Environmental and Sustainable Development Department of the Volta River Authority, Mr Benjamin A. Sackey, commended the initiative by the NKOSEC 93 Foundation and described it as a mutual interest area for both the authority and many communities along the Volta Lake.

The NKOSEC 93 Foundation, a non-governmental organisation formed by the past students as part of the programme, also donated 100 desks to their alma mater as an initial delivery of 800 desks to meet the current furniture deficit in the school.

The Assistant Headmaster in charge of academics at the Nkonya Senior High School, Mr Christopher Degbor, said the donation would offer some relief to the school's 924 student population in carrying out academic activities.