Lands Minister Samuel Abu Jinapor says the Lands Ministry will continue to roll out measures to ensure forest reserves are cordoned off from attacks.

It follows damning revelations in a report authored by former Environment Minister, Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng that showed widespread disregard for a cabinet directive explicitly banning mining in forest reserves.

Commenting on the development for the first time after the report was leaked, the Lands Minister said, the Ministry has been implementing a two-pronged approach to restoring the country's degraded landscape and forest cover.

He continued “First is protecting the forest reserves of our country and second is engaging in this aggressive afforestation and reforestation.

“The protection will mean making sure that the various forest reserves of our country are safeguarded, protected from the attack of deforestation, agricultural expansion, cocoa expansion, illegal mining, all the factors which result in forest degradation and deforestation. Wildfires and the rest,” he said while addressing the press at the launch of the latest edition of the Green Ghana Day on Wednesday.

He stated that the Forestry Commission has put in place adequate measures to ensure that the country’s forest reserves are protected, adding that the Ministry will “continue to roll out these measures to make sure that these forest reserves are cordoned off from attack or from the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation.”

“I want to say to the Ghanaian people, that whatever it takes to protect the forest reserves of our country, government is putting in place all kinds of measures,” he assured.

He added that “recently as two or three weeks ago, we had a retreat and the Forestry Commission briefed cabinet on the measures that are being taken to protect the forest reserves of our country.”

According to Mr Jinapor, the Lands Ministry is discharging its mandate with integrity and transparency to ensure that the landscape is kept intact and the integrity of the forest reserves is not compromised.