Mr Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources on Wednesday launched the 2019 Forestry Week Green Ghana at Nsoatre in the Bono Region with massive tree planting exercise across the country.

He urged the Forestry Commission to make available free seedlings to communities that showed interest in the tree planting exercise, in order to secure the environment and minimise the impact of climate change.

The Minister encouraged every Ghanaian, especially the youth to take part in the exercise to ensure a sustainable future.

He said Ahafo Region had one of the envious forest resources and water bodies in the country, however, as a result of unsustainable practices most of the resource endowment were being lost and could no longer support cash crop production and, thus, called for a change of attitude to reverse the trend.

Mr Asomah-Cheremeh planted a tree to signify the importance of the Greening Ghana celebration and to help preserve the environment.

The Minister said some challenges facing the natural resource management in Ghana due to some negative human activities; include illegal mining, timber logging and chainsaw operations, bushfires, charcoal production, resulting in the drying up of water bodies and extinction of prime timber species, as well as disruption of wildlife habitats and loss of biodiversity.

Those negative human activities, he said, had resulted in forest degradation and deforestation of the environment and impacted negatively on the climate condition.

Prizes were presented to contestants from Sacred Heart, Saint James, Susec, Notre Dame and Twene Amanfo schools for participating in an inter-schools debate competition.

They received desk-top computers, printers and cash prizes.