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Ghana’s grass-roots bid to save country’s last forests
"the amount of rainfall has dramatically increased in the last five years and heat from the sun has reduced and we now have better yield"
- Nana Opare Ababio III, the traditional chief of a 620-member village
Kakum, Ghana (AFP) Aug 31, 2008 - For five years now the heat has been less intense and the rainfall more abundant in a small cocoa farming area in Ghana's Upper Volta region, thanks to villagers bent on affecting climate change.
In this region in Afiaso in the country's south, their efforts have focused on conserving the nearby Kakum National Park.
"We used to cut down many trees for agricultural use, which brought us a lot of hardship including windstorms, decreased rainfall and increased solar intensity," said Nana Opare Ababio III, the traditional chief of a 620-member village.
But with conservation efforts, "the amount of rainfall has dramatically increased in the last five years and heat from the sun has reduced and we now have better yield," he said through an interpreter.