The Gbele Resources Reserve under the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission of Ghana has, together with its project partners, organized an educative tour for some CREMA Community Executive members drawn from different communities in the Upper West Region.

This event took place on the 28th of December 2024. The Journey started from Tumu, and at dawn, where beneficiaries were made to converge whilst others were picked up from the communities along the Wa-Tumu road.

The Community Resource Management Areas (CREMA) is a mechanism specially designed to boost or facilitate the active involvement of community members in Wildlife management and habitat protection as well as climate change mitigation and livelihood objectives.

Against this backdrop, some Executive members representing their CREMAs have been selected to benefit from an educative tour to Mole National Park, Mognori Eco-village, and Murugu Shea Processing factory.

The tour was sponsored by the Ghana Landscape Emission Reduction Project (GSLERP) Climate Change Directorate of Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission of Ghana.

The beneficiary CREMAs include Kara-Gandawii from Sisaala West District, Kassens-Nimoro from Sisaala East Municipal, Chiawia from Sisaala East Municipal, and Aabinchie from Sisaala West District of the Upper West Region of Ghana.

The tour was to enable representatives to learn and unlearn from older and effective CREMAs, such as the Murugu-Mognori CREMA, which has been recorded as pacesetters in the works of the CREMA concept in Ghana.

Some of the lessons expected to be taken by participants include but are not limited to the discovery of potential tourist attractions as well as their developments, the discovery of natural resources, the conservation of wildlife, protection of the ecological zone, how to turn resources into livelihood generation activities as well as their effective management.

The likes of Mognori Eco-village, canoe paddling or cruise, home-stay, cultural dance, and Murugu shea butter processing factory were the major case studies in this tour. A tour of Ghana's premier National Park (Mole National Park) was not left out.

According to one participant by Name Mr. George Alhassan, the tour is an eye-opener since resources at their disposal are untapped while they look elsewhere for sources of livelihood, from this, they will collaboratively see how some potential tourist destinations can be utilized to serve as an alternative source of livelihood to some community members.

Another female participant could not hide her joy of embarking on the first tour of her life; she lamented how shea nuts were being sold at a Cut-throat price whereas the value of turning into butter could done with the help of machines, hence good prices.

A man in his early seventies called Baba Abdallah could not hide his joy of seeing a wild elephant as it had been his dream. He thus admonishes the younger generations to assiduously conserve wild animals and protect their habitats for the unborn generations.

There was general feedback from participants calling for such educational tours, especially to other members, as it will ignite passion and interest in members taking up the CREMA concept seriously.
Mr. Kpaal Elijah the Assistant park manager for Gbelle Resource Reserve in Tumu espoused that, this event has been on their radar for long but lack of resources delayed it and thankfully, this project came to make it into fruition. He was optimistic that, lessons learned by participants would be replicated in their various catchment areas and to him, is the drive for designing and implementing the educative tour.