Global Media Foundation (GLOMeF) has secured a US$3,500 grant from the Global Green-Grant Fund to implement campaigns for environmental sustainability and to mitigate the impact of climate change in the Bono and Ahafo Regions.

The seven-month campaign seeks to sensitize women and young people in forest fringe communities on the contributory factors and effects of climate change in society.

Farmers and key stakeholders in the beneficiary communities, Afrisipa, Tanoso, New Dormaa, Fiapre, Kootokrom, Odumase, Abesim, and Baakoniaba, would be sensitised on the dangers of agro-chemicals and the need to engage in organic farming.

Mr Raphael Godlove Ahenu, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GLOMeF, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani on Thursday that the two regions were experiencing the impact of climate change.

“The River Tano course, a major source of water supply for many towns, is shrinking. Aquatic lives are being destroyed, and this is due to extensive use of agrochemicals and farming around the banks of the river,” he said.

Climate change, Mr Ahenu explained, remained a global issue that threatened human existence.

He said despite intensive campaigns and public education by governments, and civil society organisations the situation kept worsening.

“Many farmers continue applying agrochemicals that tend to pollute water bodies, while others practice slash and burn systems of farming that destroy biodiversity. Indiscriminate felling of trees is also another worrying practice that fuels climate change,” he said.

“That is why the campaign which would create public awareness among smallholder farmers on effects of agro-chemical use and farming around the river banks as well as help increase knowledge on the Ghana National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy is timely,” he added.

Environmental degradation, Mr Ahenu said cost the nation about US$6.3 billion, and expressed worry about the rapid depletion of forest reserves in the country.

“In the last 40 years, floods affected more than four million people, and the 2015 flash flood in Accra alone cost $55 million,” he said, adding between 2001 and 2015 the country lost about five million hectares of forest.