Project ‘NshoreNa’ to clean our beaches
It was meant to be just another visit, but several days after his Nungua fish landing site experience, Mr Kofi Tsikata had sleepless nights.
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The thing that denied him sleep was the sheer volume of refuse that had engulfed the site but those sleepless nights paid off when he found a solution to dealing with filth on Ghana’s coastline — from Half Assini to Aflao.
“Folks, I had a near sleepless night as a result of my visit to the Nungua fish landing site... I am still in shock about the things I saw, some of which I did not have the courage to share with you...”, Mr Tsikata had posted on his facebook page.
Project NshoreNa came alive but only in the mind of Mr Tsikata, who now wants to make it a national crusade.
Carved out of the Ga name for beach, ‘nshor’, but with the ‘e’ for shore in English, the NshoreNa project aims at galvanising the support of everyone to fight the rather worsening environmental conditions along Ghana’s coastline, despite the huge tourism potential that Ghana has.
Mr Tsikata, who is also a communication specialist working with the World Bank, told the Daily Graphic that the time to save Ghana’s beaches was now.
Current state of Ghana’s coastline
Ghana has about 600km of coastline, but a large tract of it is now a receptacle for garbage, faecal matter and other waste materials. That aside, the coconut trees which adorned the shores have all disappeared and in their stead are concrete and wooden structures and pig sties, reducing those sites to slums.
It is about a month since Mr Tsikata began this project but he has already visited many beaches including James Town Beach in Central Accra, Lavender Hill at Korle-Gonno, Nungua, La Beach, Sakumono Beach and some beaches in Tema, and Srogbe near Anloga.
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Out of the lot, it was only the Ave Maria Meridian Beach that was found to be absolutely clean and that was because no settlement was in its vicinity.
The project
The month-long NshoreNa Project spans April 10 to May 10 this year, with a ‘walkathon’. The walkathon, according to Mr Tsikata, will be a combination of walking, driving and boat riding at sections that are inaccessible to vehicles. All Ghanaians, he said, were invited to participate in the crusade to save the shores of Ghana.
Solution
“Till date there are no laws that deal specifically with coastal pollution but to reverse the trend and put Ghana’s beaches on the path to environmental recovery, there is the need for new laws to be enacted, “ Mr Tsikata stated.
He added that there was also the need to review the existing environmental laws and enforce them.
Mr Tsikata also stated that there was the need to put in place the right administrative and institutional measures to deal with the problem.
Writer’s email: naa.bentil@graphic.com.gh