The 28th meeting of the conference of the parties (COP 28) and the fifth meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 5) is underway starting from November 30 to December 12, 2023, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

It will comprise the 18th meeting of the COP serving as the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 18).

The first global stocktaking of the implementation of the Paris Agreement will conclude at COP 28. Each stocktaking is a two-year process that happens every five years intending to assess the world's collective progress towards achieving its climate goals.

The first Global Stocktaking takes place at the midpoint in the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and its Sustainable Development Goals including goal 13 on climate action.

In the North Western part of Ghana; Upper West Region in West Africa, Environment Care Group/Kindoma with a very large number of women, has taken up the challenge to mount an incessant campaign against climate change and to conserve the environment through pragmatic actions of tree planting across the districts and municipalities of the region.

From the west to the eastern part of the Upper West Region; with a distance of about a hundred miles and with the population of the region pegged at nine hundred and four thousand six hundred and ninety-five (094,695), according to the 2021 National Population and Housing Census.

In the Upper West Region, the climate is hot and there is a great difference between the day and night temperatures especially in the dry harmattan season, stretching from November to February. April and May are the hottest months when temperatures are around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

The rains last from June to November, though they occasionally extend to December. The heaviest rains are experienced in September. The average annual rainfall is about forty-three percent(‘43’).

Water supply has been a serious problem in many parts, especially in the very dry season between November and April. The districts and municipalities consist of flat woodland almost destitute of hills.

The vegetation has been greatly disturbed by the annual burning of grass and by
human activities, mainly farming. There are stunted trees all over, with a few prominent ones dotted here and there. Some parts look like semi-forest.
In the long dry season of six months, when the hot wind blows from the northeast and dehydrates the vegetation, the indigenous plants adapt themselves to resist the annual deleterious conditions.

Burning is still being used as a method of clearing away the vegetation, leaving patches of bare land and burnt shrubs, and the trees have developed fire resistance in the form of thick scaly barks.

Given this background and picture painted here, Environment Care Group/ based at
Kindoma in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region, took it upon themselves to come together at the local level to fight against climate change and environmental conservation. Environment Care Group/Kindoma is organizing locals, especially farmers, charcoal burners, and hunters among many others to educate them on how best to conserve the environment through nonburning, tree planting, and the policy of replanting trees when they are cut down for both domestic and other purposes.

Environment Care Group/Kindoma has collaborated with groups such as the Sisala
West Tree Growers Association in sharing ideas on good environmental practices.
For example, through this initiative, they are into the nursing of trees and planting of seedlings and mounting of good public education and campaigns against bush burning and controlled charcoal burning activities. Communities that have been positively affected include Zini, Kusali, Jefisi, and Dasima all in the Sisala West district through the sponsorship of the Global Green Grant Fund (GGF).

Other outreach programmes have been organized in the Wa West district covering communities like Poyentanga, Dayiri, Polee, Sugu Baaleyiri, and Naaha to mention just a few. Environment Care Group/Kindoma is on the ground actively working to stop the cutting of economic trees, and environmental regeneration through the conservation of trees in their natural homes by encouraging tree planting of seedlings and encouraging farmers to get involved in good farming practices in the Upper West Region.

As an environmental journalist based in the Upper West Region of Ghana working for over two decades, I have closely monitored the activities of Environment Care Group/ Kindoma, and it is quite amazing to learn how at the local level so much is being done by this group to fight climate change and to conserve the environment.

The group has over the years mobilized local resources to plant hundreds of trees with the support of the Global Green Grant Fund (GGF), and with the complement of the government’s program of ‘Greening Ghana’ and with the provision of seedlings such as acacia, rosewood, cashew, mango among others it has vigorously been pursued.

Before the government’s Green Ghana initiative started which was launched by the president of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo in 2021, under the auspices of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources as part of the aggressive afforestation and reforestation agenda of the government.

So it is not by accident that Environment Care Group/Kindoma has improved the
vegetation in the Sisala West by providing tree seedlings to individuals and
organizations in the affected areas to plant them to improve the environment.

In the Wa West district, Environment Care Group/Kindoma has improved the district environmentally with its tree planting exercise over the years. The good nature of their activities is the realization that community members have
themselves embraced the clarion call of tree planting and it is now caught up with the district.

This writer spoke to the secretary of Environment Care Group/Kindoma, Mr. Alhassan Nuhu, who told this writer that the desire of the group to fight against climate change and to conserve the environment has pushed the group this far to engage in tree planting and mounting of public education on the need to plant trees and to stop the negative annual ‘ritual’ of bush burning, which has very negative consequences for the environment, especially on human life and property.

He said that the group is on the ground and working all year round by mounting public education on how to conserve the environment through planting trees which is now the new norm for the group. Some women this writer also spoke to mentioned that Environment Care Group/ Kindoma has been a blessing for them. Madam Amamata Sufyan is a local farmer, based at Naaha in the Wa West district. She is married with three children. She said the tree planting exercise mounted by the group has brought about tremendous improvement in their area. From her local perspective, the unpredictable rainfall pattern is something she thinks is improving and she attributes it to the activities of Environment Care Group/
Kindoma and the constant public education they give to the people on tree planting and non-burning.

It is expected that as the 28th meeting of the conference of the parties (COP 28) which started November 30, and will end on December 12, 2023, it is expected that the fifth meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement CMA 5 will be more
critical of local activities in the fight against climate change.

The first Global Stocktaking of the implementation of the Paris Agreement will conclude at COP 28. Here again, It is expected that local initiatives like that of the Environment Care Group/Kindoma will be factored into overall worldly contributions towards the fight against climate change and the necessary actions to be taken to succeed.

As we expect that stocktaking is a two-year process that happens every five years to assess the world’s collective progress towards achieving its climate goals, we must focus seriously on local initiatives and what is being.

The first Global Stocktaking takes place at the midpoint in the implementation of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development Goals including goal 13 which includes issues on Climate Action. Let us recognize little contributions for the saying that “Little drops of water make a mighty ocean” should be given a practical meaning as we conclude COP 28 stocktaking!

Seidu Bomanjo is a Development Communication Practitioner and a broadcast journalist based in the Upper West Region.