The five-day workshop, organised in partnership with the United States  Agency for International Development (USAID), is being attended by professionals working on coastal economies, spatial planning as well as planners and disaster management officials at the district, regional and national levels.

The course is designed to highlight the impact of climate change on the coastal resources and to build the capacity of stakeholders to understand the science and implications of eroding beaches.

Participants would be taken through field activities on climate change vulnerability assessment, presentations in coastal ecosystems, the science of climate change, climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation and communication of climate change issues.

The overall aim is to upgrade the participants’ knowledge on climate change adaptation through scientific methods such that they would be well equipped to include climate change impact considerations into their work.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Dr Denis Worlanyo Aheto, Project Manager and Director of CCM, UCC, said the workshop was necessitated by the fact that climate change was affecting most communities as seen with the intermittent floods, seasonal droughts and increasing land and water temperatures.

He said stakeholders at the training are expected to be advocates in terms of spatial development planning and disaster management in their respective districts, regional and national levels.Mr Aheto expressed unhappiness with the unregulated and rapid development along the coast lines where people are felling coconut trees and mounting structures for entertainment and recreational joints.

He said eroding beaches were not only as a result of climate change but due to some natural human action such as sand winning which did not stabilize the coastline but only exacerbating the impact of climate change.“Climate change is happening but our own activities is further degrading the coastlines, issues of pollution, sand winning and the recent placement of structures along the beaches all contribute to degrading the coast line” he said

Dr Aheto called on the district assemblies, Environmental Protection Agency, town and country planning authorities and all relevant stakeholders to collaborate and take urgent measures to clamp down on such activities.He said the coastlines must be properly managed for the benefit of conservation and the economy adding that, development in this sector could not be left in the hands of individuals who wanted to do business.

“Elsewhere the coastlines are very prestige areas. What is pertaining on our beaches is completely an eye-saw, it is not good for tourism and cannot promote our tourism industry” he said.Dr Aheto said it is the goal of CCM to collaborate with relevant departments and institutions to ensure that the coastlines are protected.

Professor John Blay with the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, said climate change and its related impact has implications for food security with regards to fishing and that measures should be taken to address it.He described the training course as timely due to the fact that many coastal communities in the country are vulnerable to situations such as flooding.