Accra, June 11, GNA - Wildlife experts from Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire are meeting in Accra to put in place appropriate bilateral arrangements that would ensure that the movement of elephants across their common border did not create problems to the livelihood of farmers within the corridors.

According to Mr Andrews Adjei-Yeboah, Deputy Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, the demarcation of the global landmass to fall within states and nations did not necessarily confine all the natural resources to a respective state.

"Typical examples such as elephants, buffaloes, chimpanzees and other key species respect no frontiers and cross between Ghana and each of our neighbouring countries, Togo, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire. "For some of them no country can claim exclusive ownership and therefore they are duly recognized by the international community as 'shared natural resource' and the respective countries are required to accord them such status through appropriate management measures and practices," he said.

Mr Adjei-Yeboah was addressing about 20 participants attending a three-day Regional Workshop on Sustaining Livelihoods in Trans-Boundary Elephant Conservation Corridors in West Africa. The workshop is aimed at providing an opportunity for participants to discuss the issues and formulate strategies for bilateral cooperation that would enhance sustainable livelihoods and natural resources management in the Ghana-Cote d'Ivoire trans-boundary areas. The output of the workshop would be used to formulate a project proposal, which would be used to seek donor assistance to ensure sustainable livelihoods in the Bia-Goaso-Djambarakou elephant conservation corridor.

Mr Adjei-Yeboah said countries involved in trans-boundary management of natural resources could not ensure sustainable resource management if they did not collaborate to reduce threats, maintain and/or restore linkages in ecological landscapes that cut across the borders. "It is therefore imperative for all sides to collaborate to manage such resources at the ecosystem level to ensure that the livelihoods of their citizens would be sustained through bilateral or multilateral cooperation agreements and harmonisation of polices," he said. The Deputy Minister said it was for these reasons that Ghana was cooperating with Burkina Faso in the management of the White Volta trans-boundary elephant range.

"Likewise the Volta River Basin Authority, involving Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Togo, has been put in place to ensure cooperation among the various states in order to maximize the benefits of the Volta River basin, as a trans-boundary natural resource system to sustain human livelihoods," he said.

Mr. Adjei-Yeboah said the second consideration for the workshop was that of security concerns, adding that just as the animals moved across borders, so did the people who directly or indirectly depended on the animals for their livelihood.

"Where the citizens of one side do not recognise and respect the laws and regulation of the other side, there is bound to be conflict and therefore insecurity in such areas."

He recounted how conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire impacted negatively on trans-boundary natural resources and livelihoods.

"The trans-boundary natural resources within the Sapo-Tai Conservation corridor located between Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire, experience mass displacement of local communities, disrupted livelihoods and resulted in the loss of species and their habitats during the unfortunate civil wars in these countries," Mr Adjei-Yeboah. He said it was for such reasons that bilateral cooperation between Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire was necessary in the Goaso-Bia-Djambarakrou area, adding that, peace and human security was needed to prevail at all times to ensure sustainable livelihoods.

Professor Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu, Director, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for Africa and Madagascar programme, in a speech read on her said forest conservation was a key component of her outfit's work in Africa. She said WWF's global target was to establish and maintain viable representative networks of protected areas in the world's threatened and most biologically significant forest regions, hence the support for the workshop.

Mr David Kpelle, Programme Manager, WWF-West Africa Regional Programme Office (WARPO), said the livelihood of farmers in the Ghana-Cote d'Ivoire corridor was paramount hence the need to deliberate on sustaining the corridors for the elephants so that they did not continue to destroy the farm lands.