Hawa Koomson joins St. Brother Andre SHS to plant trees

St. Brother Andre Senior High School is one of the few private second cycle institutions that participated in the nationwide tree planting exercise last Friday.

Students from the school were each given a seedling to plant to mark the day, and were tasked with the responsibility of nurturing it.

The Headmaster of the school, Tony Dadzie, said: “The tree planting exercise is a step in the right direction, and we support government fully. We received a lot of plants from the Forestry Commission and together the students and the teachers each planted a tree to signify the day”.

Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East, Mavis Haw Koomson, who joined the school in the tree planting exercise urged the students to keep an eye on the plants by watering them regularly and make them their project till they graduate from the school.

“I think it’s a very good exercise and the only advice I will give them is to keep an eye on the plants so tomorrow when they are no more in the school and they visit the school, they can boast of it. I shared my experience with them when I was a student. My school had trees, and we did not bother ourselves sitting in the classrooms during break, and I believe they will experience the same if they are able to nurture the trees,” the MP said.

The District Manager for the Forestry Commission in Winneba, Faustina Animah, indicated that the Green Ghana project will be “unsuccessful if we fail to protect the forest reserves where we are planting these trees.”

“Every land has its boundaries and there is a purpose for preserving the land, so we must ask ourselves why we keep on encroaching these reserves. This is the time the youth and traditional authorities in our communities must be urged to be citizen vigilantes,” the District Manager for the commission said.

“I believe the greening Ghana project by the government is a step in the right direction, and so we must also preserve our forest reserves in order for the trees we are planting not to go in vain,” she added.

The District Manager also encouraged communities that have forest reserves to get them gazetted to prevent encroachers.

“These are the only lands that we can be proud of as community members. And I am urging community members to come forward to gazette proposed forest reserves that have not yet been gazetted. Forest reserves are there to serve as legacies, and it will be out of place for us to destroy the,” Faustina Animah added.