Save our Beaches Ghana holds sensitisation programme
Save our Beaches Ghana, an environmental non-governmental organisation, has held a stakeholders meeting to sensitise the public to the need to keep beaches clean.
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The meeting, which was held on the theme: ‘Our beaches, our heritage, our role’, was attended by chiefs, fishermen,opinion leaders and residents along the beaches of Kokrobite and surrounding communities.
Most of the chiefs at the meeting expressed worry over the pollution of the beaches and urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the assemblies to live up to their responsibilities of enforcing the laws governing environmental cleanliness.
Speaking at the meeting, the Deputy Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Kingsley Inkoom, said there was the need for the present generation to protect any legacy by their ancestors.
Citing the beaches as a very important legacy, he appealed to all stakeholders, including the public, to ensure that the beaches were maintained, particularly by keeping them clean and avoiding sand winning which tended to destroy the beauty of the beaches.
He said research had shown that the presence of litter made up of plastic and paper waste, cans and other undesirable materials on the beaches deterred people from patronising the beaches.
He noted that clean beaches had the potential to be used for relaxation by tourists and thereby creating employment for the local community.
‘’If we call the beaches our heritage then there is the need to keep and preserve them, otherwise we would have failed, and posterity would judge us”, he said.
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Individuals and groups should therefore make it their responsibility to ensure that they leave the beaches better than the present generation met them.
An officer of the EPA, Ms Peace Dziedzom Gbeckor Kove, confirmed that the current state of beaches across the country left much to be desired.
She added that a lot of them had been turned into dump sites.
In a slide presentation, she showed the extent of pollution along the beaches of Ghana and urged communities living along water bodies to avoid throwing litter into drains.
The impact of such human activities on the country’s water bodies, she noted, was appalling, and needed immediate attention.
“It will interest you to know that some fishermen literally catch piles of rubbish rather than fish when they go on their fishing expedition,” she said.
She said the EPA had put adequate measures in place to ensure that the various water bodies in the country, especially the sea, maintained their sanctity.
A representative from the Ministry of Health, Ms Cecilia Ampadu, said polluting the sea and beaches had adverse effects on human health, citing diseases such as cholera, skin rash, digestive and respiratory problems as some of the effects.