Tertiary Institutions have been called upon to introduce courses in Climate Change as a way to help curb problems associated with it.
The Team Leader of the Ghana Ecological Network, Dr Delali B Dovie made the call during a Public Lecture organized on the theme “Building Capacity for Ecology in Ghana for students and lecturers of the University for Development Studies at the Nyankpala Campus in the Northern Region.
Dr Dovie was unhappy that as pivotal institutions for national development none of the Tertiary Institutions in the country have developed a course on climate changes as discipline and said that in this 21st century Ghana still relied on foreign Scientists to educate it on its own environment.
He stressed that unless that trend changed the country’s policy on the environment, natural resources and agro-biodiversity would look beautiful but very difficult to tackle.
“The change must begin now with our Tertiary Education Institutions to dispel the notion that Ecological Science is a dry discipline with little or no place in society”, he said.
Dr Dovie pointed out that any nation’s development that was not built on the principles of ecological resilience may not be sustainable and that the fewer people were trained in the discipline of ecology the more they may be learning towards unsustainable development.
He said in order to contribute towards addressing climate change problem, the Ghana Ecological Network with sponsorship package from British Ecological Society was implementing a project dubbed “ Building Capacity for Ecology in Ghana. ”
The package includes public lectures in Tertiary Institutions aimed at bringing cutting edge ecological research information to those who need them especially in the tertiary institutions.
The Public Lecture was marked by various topics on climate change including “Impact of climate variability on the agro-ecology of northern Ghana.
There was also the discussion of Connecting Climate Change and the Renewal of Natural Resources delivered by Dr Francis Obeng and Mr Clement A Weobong both lecturers of the University for Development.
They stressed the need for the students of the University to champion the crusade against environmental degradation at their various community levels.
They also appealed to communities to be adaptive to climatic change and to avoid degrading the environment.
This they said occurred when they mined indiscriminately, felled trees for charcoal, and bush burning which they noted were very common in the three northern regions.