The Forestry Institute of Ghana of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (FORIG-CSIR) has released over 2,500 seedlings to support the Green Ghana initiative rolled out by the government.

The institute has also joined in planting trees in some schools to create climate change awareness.

FORIG believes the zero net land degradation agenda can be achieved by planting more trees.

Over 10 schools have benefited from the FORIG-CSIR tree planting exercise to support the government's Green Ghana initiative.

Prof. Daniel Aninagyei Ofori is a research scientist and the director of FORIG-CSIR.

"When the environment is degraded it has a negative impact on humans.

"We can only survive when the environment is restored

"We always think of zero net land degradation and without the zero net that means we keep depleting our resources” he noted.

According to the institution, Ghana is now the net emitter of carbon due to ecosystem degradation. 

“We realized our environment is been depleted

“Ghana had 8.2 million hectares of forest now it has degraded to 1.6 million

“Ghana was a net sink of carbon but today Ghana is a net emitter of carbon due to the depletion of our forests” he emphasized.

Prof. Stephen Adu Bredu, a principal research scientist is urging teachers to educate school children on the importance of planting trees.

“We decided to plant trees in schools because we believe the teachers and students will take care of the plants

“Students need to know the importance of planting trees” he stressed.

The Green Ghana project is an initiative that aims at planting five million trees in a single day across the country.