The environmental chiefs, numbering 25 from various communities in the district, enskinned by their divisional chiefs under the auspices of the Bongo Paramountcy, with support from the Water Resources Commission (WRC) have been working to protect the environment.

Over the past year, the chiefs have been engaging and leading in tree planting, education to prevent harmful environmental practices including bushfires, tree felling, bad farming practices among others in their communities as part of efforts to restore degraded forest reserves, farmlands and water bodies.

At a capacity building and training workshop, held in Bolgatanga, stakeholders in the water and environment sector applauded them for their proactive leadership in addressing pressing environmental and water pollution challenges in the area.

The training was organised by the White Volta Basin Secretariat of the WRC in collaboration with the Dutch Water Authorities, under the Blue Deal Project.

The chiefs were enskinned to among other things support implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) interventions in the Bongo.

Apart from intensifying education in their communities on environmental protection, the chiefs have planted trees and nurtured them recording at least 50 percent survival since the beginning of 2024.

“After our installation last year, each of us was given 10 seedlings to plant and nurture”, Naba Aiden Agilgo, Patron of the Environmental Chiefs, said on behalf of the other environmental chiefs while addressing the stakeholders.

“Each of us gave five seedlings to some members of our communities and planted the remaining five ourselves and we are happy to inform you that each of us, the five we planted, have all survived”.

He said the environmental chiefs had elected their leadership and had been meeting periodically to review their activities and offer support to each to address the environmental challenges in their communities.

He said the chiefs had been working with stakeholders in the communities to protect the environment from destruction and called for support to amplify their work to achieve maximum impact.

“Through our work, many people are now interested in tree planting, and some have even offered their lands of about 3 acres to plant trees as a plantation, but we don’t have the seedlings”, he added.

 He said one of the major challenges confronting the tree planting exercise was access to sustainable water during the dry season to water the seedlings and called for support.

Naba Baba Salifu Atamale Lemyaarum, Paramount Chief of the Bongo Traditional Area, commended the chiefs for their hard work and appealed to state institutions such as the

Forestry Commission and the Department of Agriculture to work with the environmental chiefs to advance environmental protection issues.

He appealed to the WRC and other stakeholders to support the communities with tricycles to use as means of transport to fetch water to water their trees, stressing it would help to enhance their activities.

Mr. Jesse Kazapoe, Head of the White Volta Basin Secretariat of the WRC, lauded the chiefs and added that due to extreme heat, imposed by climate change, it was commendable that at least some of the trees planted last year survived.

He said the destruction of the surface had a significant impact on the quality of the underground water and therefore the Secretariat would continue to support chiefs to advance environmental protection.

Mr. Jaap Bros, Coordinator, Blue Deal Project, White Volta Basin, advised the chiefs to ensure good farming practices such as agro-festory, assisted natural regeneration, stone bonding among others to help retain water on their farms and protect the environment and water bodies.