The Badu Town Council of the Tain District in the Brong Ahafo Region has appealed to the government to take the fight against bushfires as serious as she did with galamsey (illegal mining).
Speaking at a town council meeting, Mr. Yusif Iddrisu; chairman of the Badu Town council said districts and communities within the savannah belt experience perennial problems of bushfires due to predisposed environmental factors coupled with human activities. He said one of the major causes of bushfires within the area is hunting by some unscrupulous groups and individuals from the Wenchi Municipality.
The chairman made the call during an interaction with the media at the council’s first quarter meeting in Badu.
”In 2017 for example, there were over 1,000 acres of food like maize, cassava and plantain as well as cash crops like cashew that were lost to bushfires in Badu and others parts of the Tain District which rendered most farmers poorer”.
He therefore appeals to the government to take the fight against bushfires very seriously. He called on the government to form a joint task force among the security agencies especially the Military, Police and the Ghana National Fire Service to patrol most farming communities to avert the situation.
The Chairman has observed that the government has initiated operation vanguard to fight galamsey within certain parts of the country to save the environment especially water bodies and farm lands and in his estimation, such seriousness should be attached to the menace of bushfires since it also destroys the environment and the livelihoods of several people in Tain especially Badu and its surrounding communities every year.
He added that if the government’s policy to ensure sustainable agricultural development could materialize, the fight against bushfires should be made a national security issue.
Chairman Yussif indicated that the Badu Town Council is collaborating with the Tain District Assembly to bring development to the door steps of the people of Badu specifically in the area of education, agriculture and industrialization. He added that the council is ready to liaise with the traditional leadership of Badu to make available the required piece of land to support the One District One Factory policy in the Tain district.
