>As the sun beams down on the city of Accra, students, teachers, local residents and national officials have come together for the yearly celebration of Green Ghana Day. The rainy season seems to pause as African drums, flutes, saxophones, and suspenseful beats blast the song “Welcome Home” by legendary Afro-rock band Osibisa. People are led to their seats by volunteers and workers in white, green, and yellow shirts. There is an open field at the University of Ghana and a stage where President Nana Akufo-Addo will soon speak. Seedlings of orange, palm, and avocado are handed out and a crowd of eyes awaits the signature event: the president himself planting a velvet tamarind tree.
June 9, 2023 was designated Green Ghana Day, the third edition of the event started by President Akufo-Addo in 2021. In the inaugural year, Ghanaians planted 7 million trees; in the following year the target grew to 20 million. The goal for 2023 was to put at least 10 million new seedlings in the ground. This year’s theme, ‘Our Forests, Our Health’ aligns with the government’s plan for a greener future and signals a serious issue for the West African nation.
According to Global Forest Watch, Ghana lost around 20% of its entire tree cover between 2001 to 2021, and in some recent years as much as 2% in a single year. Much of this is driven by clearing land for agricultural production, but some is due to illegal artisanal gold mining, known in Ghana as galamsey, in which trees are cut in order to make extraction pits for gold. The government has grappled with ending galamsey, but it persists in a country where about a quarter of the population aged 15 to 35 were not employed in 2022. With claims of $6.6 billion in revenue being generated from gold exports, one of the top resources exported from Ghana, the short term financial rewards of mining attract many, including, allegedly, those in power.
So while reforestation events like Green Ghana Day are being promoted by the government, environmental groups in the country claim that the failure to protect what old growth forest remains makes Green Ghana Day amount to little more than “greenwashing”.
A Local Solution to a Global Crisis
On the stage at the main event at the University of Ghana, president Nana Akufo-Addo tied Green Ghana Day to an urgent global need.
“The fate of our planet, and the future of our people, depends on the actions we take today,” the president told an audience of some 500 students, teachers and government officials. “This global crisis requires collective, ambitious, and meaningful efforts from all countries. Achieving these targets requires that we take urgent steps to address the problems of deforestation and forest degradation.”
For some young people present, like Stephanie Okwampah, 13, a student at Accra College of Education Demonstration School, this is their first time seeing the president in person.
Okwampah was quick to share what she would tell the president, if she got a chance: “What you are doing would not only benefit Ghana, I feel like if you could spread it around, then others around you will take care of [the trees].” She added: “Animals will get their habitats back, but it will also help with deforestation and all of this stuff. Most animals are endangered or almost extinct.”
About 10 basic schools arrived for the event. “[The youth] are getting more interested, getting more involved, and they are the future generations,” said Thomas Adabogo, 31, an advocate for the Coalition of Youth Groups.
Adobogo notes that the President is taking his part to tell citizens that this is the time for everyone to get involved in fighting climate change.
In the organization of this nation-wide endeavor, distribution of the seedlings falls to the Forestry Commission, a part of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.
Of the 10 million trees divided between 16 regions in Ghana, two million are dedicated to the Accra and Greater Accra areas, said volunteer Samuel Asiamah Asare. The Forestry Commission headquarters acts as one of four major distribution points in this region, which delivers seedlings to district offices to reach further communities. Other main distribution centers span from Amasaman in the east to Tema in the west.
Individuals could specify which tree they wanted to plant, or receive guidance from volunteer staff. From fruit trees to shade species, the seedlings available offer nutritional, ornamental, and various other uses for citizens. Still, to reach the goal of 10 million in a day requires a serious effort.
“We have a publicity program in place that we are implementing, and this involves a massive use of social media, which is what appeals to the youth most,” said Joyce Ofori Kwafo, media director for the Forestry Commission. “All the popular social media sites like Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, we use all of these platforms.”
Schools were main staging grounds for smaller planting ceremonies across Ghana, but activities were held by many other groups. Players of the professional soccer team Asante Kotoko planted trees at their training field in Kumasi, the country’s second largest city. Telecommunications giant Vodafone held a planting at a girls’ high school in Accra. And the global spirits company Pernod Ricard planted 1,500 trees in the coastal community of Moree.
The international community also got in on the action. At an event hosted by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, around thirty ambassadors — from Australia to Zimbabwe — attended a commemoration before moving to a planting ground of their own: a grid of plots assigned to each of the countries in attendance, which have been added to in each annual event. They were joined by Ghana parliament member Theresa Lardi Awuni, from the Greater Accra region.
“It’s important for [other nations] to know what we believe and practice in our country,” said Lardi Awuni. “Most of them are here because they also support Green Ghana Day, even those who come from desert areas are now planting trees to ensure that they preserve the environment. Some of them were asking if they could bring seedlings and plants back to their embassies.”
All of this comes with a hefty price tag: 2.5 million Ghanaian Cedis, around $160,000, were provided by the government. Other support came from international donors like the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and SNV Netherlands Development Organization.
But in a nation already struggling with record inflation and defaulting on its foreign debt last year, the use of such government funds has been questioned by Ghanaians. Some concerns stem from the mixed results on the number of seedlings actually distributed, planted, and later surviving from previous Green Ghana Days.
“If you can take good care of the trees, this initiative would be very good,” said school teacher Daniel Kofi Darko, 47. But only two of the trees at his school in the nearby Bawaleshie neighborhood survived from the year before, due to vandalism. “Most of our places are open, so you plant the trees and miscreants destroy the trees.” Others have had more success. Thirteen-year-old student Stephanie Okwampah believes that her school has managed to keep around 100 trees alive and said students take turns watering them all year.
The government’s own statistics confirm a high rate of survival. “After planting, we do an assessment,” said Ofori. “About 70% of the trees have survived, which is very high. And there have been independent assessments by some independent bodies to confirm what we said.”
“A Useless Exercise”
At the same time that the president was taking the stage at the University of Ghana, a different group was gathering in the Ghana International Press Center, across town.
“This is a form of protest”, said Kenneth PK Agyir, co-founder of the Youth Alliance for Green Ghana, a main speaker at the event. Agyir was part of a coalition of eight groups that came together to call on the government to get tougher on illegal mining and more serious about protecting trees.
“We call on the government to enforce the laws, the many laws that have been enacted that regulate mining activities in the country and crack the whip on those who flout them, even such persons within the government, in demonstration of this government’s real commitment to greening Ghana beyond the Green Ghana Day project. We believe that Green Ghana should not be a one day affair, it should be a way of life,” said Agiyr.
The press conference was moderated by Daryl Bosu, Deputy National Director of A Rocha, a leading environmental non-profit in Ghana.
Organizations like A Rocha decried what they call the government’s inaction on illegal mining and its contradictory actions towards the environment.
“If you are planting trees today, but tomorrow you go out there and also pass policies that will destroy the same forest and trees that we are planting, then that’s a useless exercise,” Bosu told the group of press and activists gathered.
Awula Serwah, organizer of Eco-Conscious Citizens and who attended the press conference, claims donors in the extractive industries are too influential in setting policy. “Politics is an expensive business,” Serwah said in an interview. “So the financiers get their money from diverse means. One of them is mining. There’s a lot of pressure on the government.”
Bosu contended that Green Ghana Day is a good program, but it is being poorly implemented without an organized plan to care for the new trees planted, and undermined by the lack of protection for forest reserves.
“We are there to help the people know what the real facts are,” he said, asserting the organization’s belief that the government has a very well-planned public relations strategy to maintain the appearance of being green. Additionally, in order to see a difference in tree planting, he says there needs to be a focus on planting within forest reserves so that these trees are guaranteed care.
“So we will be planting trees, just as we always do, but we are not riding on the back of Green Ghana,” said Bosu. He emphasized that the spectacle of planting 10 million trees in a day amounts to “greenwashing” – or “deceptive environmental marketing” – and cited specific examples of where the government is actively pursuing developments that will kill valuable trees.
One is the Atewa Forest, which A Rocha is fighting to protect. The untouched wilderness, 60 miles from Accra, is at risk due to a possible bauxite mine the government is negotiating with a Chinese company, in exchange for major infrastructure projects. Bosu fears around 100 species and acres of old growth trees are at risk in this biodiversity hotspot. A Rocha is currently suing the government over the development.
While Bosu has lost faith in the current government, he is encouraged by society. “Maybe the hope I see is that there seems to be an awakening amongst the youth, and I hope that it is not too late.”
Whose Forests, Whose Health?
Back at the headline event at the University of Ghana, there were some who shared similar ideas.
With Green Ghana Day’s focus on reforestation and the importance of caring for the environment, people question its authenticity when illegal or weakly regulated mining can contaminate water bodies and agricultural lands, thus creating health issues amongst nearby populations. There is also no framework on how to manage this contaminated land.
“We are concerned as young people [about galamsey], but we are also not able to express our anger because of a fear that we may be victimized,” said Thomas Adabogo, 31, who had previously expressed his hope for the Green Ghana initiative.
The atmosphere felt forward-facing, though in different directions. There was the prospect of new trees, but also the concern over the environment — specifically, on illegal mining and deforestation.
“Come with me on this happy trip back to the promised land,” the song “Welcome Home” by Osibisa continued in the background, with some people sharing the underlying conflict between concern and hope.
“I think some of us now agree that we have to be bold because this is our future,” said Adobogo. “Those making these decisions are 50, 60, and 70 years old, but what about us who are 20, 25, or 30? What are they leaving, what legacy, what Ghana are they leaving for us?”