Professor Frimpong-Boateng says Ghanaians must make a conscious effort to protect their environment and fight menaces such as illegal mining popularly known as galamsey.

According to the former Environment Minister, the country stands to benefit from this.

Using his experiences in Germany where he actively worked as a surgeon, Professor Frimpong-Boateng urged government to establish green belts in every city across the country.

“In every German city, you will find a belt of forests linking various suburbs of the city. For example in Germany, you could walk from say Adabraka to the Central Business District, across Osu or somewhere all through forests that have been laid in every city.

"So everywhere is cool and it is very commendable. You will find both young and old cycling and jogging and at times walking off into some restaurants that are established in these areas.

"And so this is something that I wish we could do here in Ghana; planting trees, maintaining our forests and then leaving gardens in our towns and cities so that people could go there for recreation and for health reasons,” he stressed.

His comment comes on the back of the Green Ghana Day celebration which is being implemented in every district across the country.

The exercise, which was launched by President Akufo-Addo in 2021 under the auspices of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, forms part of an aggressive afforestation and reforestation agenda by the government.

The initiative is intended to restore the lost forest cover of the country devastated by illegal small-scale mining and timber logging.

While the maiden edition in 2021 targeted planting five million trees, the country ended up planting over seven million seedlings.

In 2022, more than 26 million trees were planted, exceeding the 20 million target.

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II officially launched this year’s edition of the Green Ghana Day on Wednesday, May 17 at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, urging all well-meaning Ghanaians to support the tree planting exercise.

The revered King said the Day presented an opportunity for Ghanaians to show patriotism and commitment towards protecting the country’s forest cover and leave the younger generation much richer and greener in Ghana.

“Government cannot do it alone. We must all get involved and support government to come to grips with these matters,” Otumfuo Osei Tutu said.

The Asantehene pledged to lead his chiefs and people to plant 2.5 million trees to protect the enclave of Lake Bosomtwe in the Bosomtwe District of the Region.

The programme also aims at inculcating values of planting and nurturing trees in the citizens, particularly among the younger generation, to mitigate the negative effects of climate change as well as beautifying the environment.

Averagely, more than 81 per cent of the seedlings planted in 2021 survived while 72 per cent survived in 2022.