A 13.2 acre cashew and mango plantation located at Jang in the Nadowli District of the Upper West Region has been destroyed by fire resulting in the loss of several million cedis of investment.
The plantation which also had some medicinal and fodder plants, belongs to Naa Robert Loggah, Divisional Chief of Tibani in the Kaleo Traditional Area.
Officials of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) accompanied the chief on Thursday on an inspection tour of the plantation to ascertain the cause of the fire and the level of damage.
According to Officials of the GNFS, the fire might have been caused by the burning down of a dry dawadawa tree inside the plantation by a woman for fire wood.
Naa Loggah, who is also the President of the Forestry Forum – Ghana, an environmental NGO ,was shocked to see the level of destruction after spending GH¢400.00 to construct a fire belt round the plantation to protect it from bush fire.
He said apart from the loss in investment, the burning down of the plantation would also have an adverse affect on students of the University for Development Studies (UDS) and Vocational Institutes who use the plantation for their field studies.
Naa Loggah also recounted the loss of soil fertility and the destruction of biodiversity as a result of the destruction of the plantation and appealed to environmentalists and traditional rulers to help propagate the anti bush burning message to the public to save the environment.
He appealed to hunters to learn to rear livestock at home which according to him was more profitable than going to the bush to destroy the environment in search for game.
He advised cattle owners to establish fodder banks and pledged to support them with seedlings to grow and feed their animals instead of chasing the animals into plantations to graze and destroy plants and economic trees.