Naa Angsole Ganaa II, Paramount Chief of the Jirapa Traditional Area, has directed all divisional and sub-chiefs in the communities to put measures in place to check indiscriminate felling of trees and bush burning.
He said the indiscriminate felling of trees especially economic trees should be prohibited and that any offender caught would be made to face
the consequences.
Naa Ganaa II also warned that anybody, who sets bush fire should be arrested and punished and failure to arrest the offender the chief of that particular area would be made to answer.
He gave the directive at the maiden celebration of the “Bong-Ngo” Festival of the chiefs and people of the Jirapa Traditional Area at Jirapa on Saturday.
Naa Ganaa II said the annual bush burning was the main cause of poor yields in food crops as it contributed to the depletion of the environment and the impoverishment of the soil.
The Jirapa Naa, who is also a Member of the Council of State, suggested to government and district assemblies in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions to ban bush burning and indiscriminate felling of trees to support the efforts of chiefs in their fight against the practice.
Naa Ganaa II called on the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to embark on serious educational campaign in the three northern regions to sensitize farmers to embrace modern farming practices to improve food crops and livestock production.
He advised farmers in the traditional area to revisit the practice of “communal spirit of rotational farming for families” to help increase food production in the communities.
The Jirapa Naa also suggested to government and other development partners to help farmers to harvest rain water for all-year-round crops
production.
Naa Ganaa II called on government and the district assembly to rehabilitate old dams and provide new ones for communities in the area for
dry season farming and fishing.
That, he said, would help to supplement the food requirement of the people and also to empower them economically as well as to reduce youth migration.
On culture, the Jirapa Naa advised his people to maintain all cultural practices that gave good account of them and do away with those that were detrimental to their wellbeing and development.
“Even though culture is dynamic and fused with other cultures from time to time, the fusion must result in a better and richer product rather than a backward and unacceptable one”, Naa Ganaa noted.
Naa Ganaa II expressed gratitude to President John Atta Mills for the numerous development projects that had been provided to the Jirapa Traditional Area under his Government.
“We are very grateful to the government because we have also had a fair share of the national cake. We, however, still want more because there are still problems in education, health and agriculture,” he pleaded.
“Bong-Ngo” is used by the chiefs and landlords of the Jirapa Traditional Area to impose a ban on women to stop premature harvesting of dawadawa fruits until such a time that they are matured for human consumption.
The practice of harvesting premature economic fruits is said to becoming alarming and therefore Jirapa Naa’s conscious effort to stem the tide had been hailed to be in the right direction.