Wa, Sept. 11, GNA - Mr Asher Nkegbe, Acting Upper West Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has called on District Assemblies to support the Community Environmental Management Committees in the crusade to combat desertification in the region. He said students and pupils of 30 educational institutions in the region had joined in the fight against desertification by establishing environmental clubs in their respective schools to sensitize their peers and the public on good environmental practices.

Mr Nkegbe was speaking at a Validation workshop on Socio-Economic Baseline Studies carried out by the EPA in some communities in the region.

He said the clubs had started drawing their programmes and funds were being sourced to implement them through the National Action Plan to combat desertification.

The workshop, which attracted 100 participants from all the nine districts in the region, validated studies conducted on land use management, wildlife biodiversity, energy and water resource management among other things in the communities that were piloting the programme. He said EPA had successfully sensitized the 30 pilot communities where the baseline studies were conducted and these communities had established community environmental management committees to fight desertification.

Mr Nkegbe said the capacities of the environmental management committees would be built for them to come out with their own work plans. Some of the communities are Goziri and Tanchara in the Lawra District, Maase, Talawono and Naaha in the Wa West District and Fian in the Nadowli District.