In a bid to promote tourism to reach its highest peak in both Ghana and in the international world, fourteen sites have been selected to undergo a rehabilitation programme under a Community Based Eco-tourism Project (CBEP) in the country.

These selected sites are, Amedzofe, Boaben-Fiema, Bobiri, Liati Wote, Bunso, Domama and Bonwire. The rest are Tafi-Atome, Tanoboase, Xavi, Tangzule, Paga, Red Volta and Weciau.

Nurtured by the Nature Conservation Research Centre (NCEC), and NGO, the project is being funded by USAID in collaboration with the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), project site committees, US Peace Corps and Netherlands Development Organisation which advises the public about the eco-tourism site.

The identification of the sites started in 1995 when 16 sites were finally selected with 14 of them currently being developed under the first phase.

Charles Buaben, marketing officer of the Ashanti regional office of the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), who made this disclosure in an interview with The Ghanaian Chronicle noted that funding for the 14 sites started in January last year under the first phase.

The purpose of the project, he said, is to conserve some natural areas for holiday and other recreational purposes aimed at helping to project communities to reduce poverty, create employment and provide tourism awareness centres as well as strengthening the existing Tourism Management Terms (TMT) at each project site in management and banking skills.

He noted that due to the growth of civilisation or modernisation, people are changing from the mass tourism farm where people go to tourism sites with a common purpose, to the alternative or rural tourism where people select nature and learn more about natural things they see.

Buaben said this change is another factor that prompted them to create an eco-tourism based on ecological nature. A number of developmental projects have taken place in almost all 14 sites. For instance, in the Bobiri Butterfly Sanctuary in Ashanti, a visitor’s centre has been constructed to give information about the site.

According to him, brochures on the projects have been printed, T-shirts have been distributed to the people and three circuits where people could move from one circuit to the other have been developed.

Since the project started last year, three awareness programmes took place at the Bobiri forest reserve at Kubease to educate people about relevant issues in connection with the project of which the third and the final one under the first phase was held on 17 December at Bobiri last year.

The people were taught on how they could benefit from the presence of visitors in the communities. Buaben however, noted that development projects at Bonwire (home of kente) could not take place because the terms of agreement with the people could not be successful, due to chieftaincy disputes at that time and he hoped that the place could be developed under the second phase this year.