Environment in Ghana Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Ghana’ s ab solute location (Latitudes 4 degrees 44.2 N to 11 degrees 10.5 N and Longitudes 1 degree 12 E to 3 degrees 15.3 W) places the country-with a total area of 92,000 square miles (238,533 square kilometers)-within the tropical rain forest and tropical savanna biomes. This location provides Ghana with a specific combination of geology, climate, biota, soils, water resources, and ocean accessibility whose exploitation are critical to the economy. Export of gold earned over $600 million in 2002. Agriculture and fisheries activities currently constitute about a third of Ghana’s economy and provide employment for over 50 percent of the economically active population in a population of 21.4 million people. Exports of cocoa products brought in an income of over $400 million in 2002. And products from the tropical forests earned an export income of about $170 million in 2001, and also generate activities that account for over 3 percent of the Ghanaian economy.

But Ghana faces enormous environmental challenges that are closely tied to the second aspect of Ghana’s location-its relative location within the world system of core, semiperiphery, and periphery countries. Ghana’s situation as a periphery/former colony, low income, dependent third world country presents a specific set of challenges. Most of the livelihoods of the people of Ghana and the incomes of local and foreign businesses depend upon the direct exploitation of the natural resource base. It is estimated, for instance, that Ghana’s forests, which covered about 20 million acres (8.2 million hectares) in the late 19th century have been depleted to only 4 million acres (1.7 million hectares) of permanent forests. Another category of environmental problems in urban centers is related to the rapid population growth rate of 2.7 percent a year (1984-2000), which has fueled a rapid rate of urbanization.

To improve environmental governance, the government of Ghana established the Environmental Protection Council (EPC) in 1974 to coordinate environmental management activities. Since then, the government has more explicitly tied Ghana’s development to environmental conservation. In a National Environmental Policy and its associated National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP) 1993, the government committed itself to environmental protection, which is defined as “all interventions that may be deemed necessary to maintain a high level of environmental quality, and which at the same time enhances sustainable socioeconomic development.”

As part of the necessary interventions, the government established the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (1993), and the EPC was transformed into the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1994 to become the national environmental management institution with regulatory and enforcement functions (including those related to environmental impact assessments). Other EPA responsibilities include monitoring, setting environmental standards, research, and information dissemination. To further facilitate good environmental governance, the government of Ghana has proposed a decentralization of environmental management by assigning the local government units-the District Assemblies-with responsibilities for translating national policies and programs into local actions. Major environmental policies in Ghana include the Forest and Wildlife Policy (1994), Energy Policy (1996), Land Policy (1999), Sanitation Policy (1999), and Water Resources Policy (1999). Ghana is a signatory of various International Conventions, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Bibliography:

Kwame Domfeh, “Managing the Environment in a Decade of Administrative Reforms in Ghana,” International Journal of Public Sector Management (v.17I6I7, 2004);
Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), The State of the Ghanaian Economy (ISSER, various years).