“We are very happy to join the Green Ghana campaign to plant five million trees today in Ghana, as initiated by President Akufo Addo,” Ambassador Ron Strikker said on his way in the early morning of Friday 11 June to plant 10 trees on the premises of The Netherlands Embassy at the Ako-Adjei Interchange and in the garden of his residence on Jawarlarlal Nehru road.
“Trees mean life, just like water. They are immensely important for life on our planet, and are crucial as storages of carbon in our fight against climate change. We need them, and we need many more of them. In addition, they are beautiful. What would the Ghanaian landscape be like without the cyber, the teak tree, the baobab, the mahogany tree or the cacao tree? How about shade? Protect the national parks, the forest reserves and add to those! Make Atewa Forest a National Park!” he added.
Ambassador Strikker commended government for this important Green Ghana campaign, but added that such campaigns should not stand alone. Government and civil society, in fact all citizens of Ghana, should ensure that deforestation stops once and for all – and that reforestation starts at a large scale.
“I visited last week in Berekum the Dutch-funded teak reforestation plant run by Form Ghana and the Forestry Commission: some 20,000 hectares of teak trees will have been planted very soon since the start in 2001. This is a fantastic initiative that others should follow. Today, they will plant 50,000 teak seedlings as their contribution to the Green Ghana campaign. That is what I call action,” he said.
In addition to trees planted at the Ambassador’s residence, more trees were also planted at the residence of the Deputy Ambassador and at the Embassy.
