The Rainforest Alliance, an international non-profit organization that develops and implements long-term conservation and community development programs to improve rural livelihoods through sustainable local economies has distributed more than 200,000 indigenous tree seedlings to communities and other stakeholders.

This is in a bid to develop, and update land use land management plans in some selected landscapes as part of activities of the LEAN Project.

The move according to the Senior Associate of Rainforest Alliance, Kelvin Nartey is to contribute to the national efforts of biodiversity conservation, improving livelihoods of smallholder farmers, increasing climate change resilience and reducing emissions from land use changes.

The Landscapes and Environmental Agility across the Nation (LEAN) Project which was launched in 2021, at the national level and subsequently launched at the three targeted landscapes, the savannah, high forest, and transition zones of Ghana aims to conserve biodiversity, build climate resilience, and reduce emissions from land-use changes in these zones of Ghana is said be implemented on the ground by a consortium of four local and international NGOs with expertise in these challenging fields: The Rainforest Alliance, World Vision Ghana, Tropenbos Ghana, and EcoCare Ghana.

‘Our landscape programs include training opportunities for rural producers to diversify income streams, connecting farmers and forest communities to new markets to expand selling opportunities and amplifying voices of rural producers by strengthening local and regional groups’ he said

Rainforest Alliance Ghana has also undertaken tree planting activity at Tano River near Kojokrom and other degraded areas.