Peki (V/R), June 29, GNA - Chiefs and opinion leaders were on Thursday urged to continue to lead their people in the protection of the environment.

Mr Kwaku Baka, Chairman, Gbidukor Environment Protection Committee, who made the call during the launch of the 2006 Gbidukor Arbour Day celebration at Peki, explained that this could be achieved by bringing to book any unscrupulous individual or organization that fell trees indiscriminately or illegally and developed structures along waterways. He said many regulations existed for the protection of the environment but they could only be effective when society, particularly those in leadership or influential positions, ensured their enforcement. Mr Baka said the National Secretariat of Gbidukor, which was a union of the people of the Peki and Hohoe traditional areas, instituted Arbour Day celebrations in 2001 to reverse decades of environmental degradation.

The people have planted more than 3,600 seedlings since the inception of the programme comprising mostly mahogany, within the 17 Gbidukor townships and on premises of selected churches, junior and senior secondary schools.

Mr Baka appealed to land owners to cultivate cash crops and high-yielding mangoes, oranges, fuel-wood and teak tree. Togbe Baduvie IV, Chief of Peki Tsame, the guest speaker, said mankind's existence depended on the environment and, therefore, praised Gbidukor for initiating the environment protection program. The Chairman of the Peki Home Steering Committee, Mr Geoffrey Kuma said after more than 300 years of separation by migration, colonial and geographical circumstances, the Gbis of Hohoe and Peki traditional areas, who traced their ancestry to the same stock, re-united in 1995 to form Gbidukor.

He said the protection of the environment had been one of the positive outcomes of the re-unification. About 80 representatives from all the eight Peki Townships as well as the two senior secondary schools participated in the six-hour tree planting exercise. Among those who too k part in the exercise were Togbe Adzimah V, chief of Gbi Abansi; Mama Kpangabea and Mama Baduvie, Queen Mothers of Peki Dzake and Peki Tsame, respectively.