Monday 19 May 2014

Atewa Forest at Risk of Disappearing

Known to be the healthiest and most important ecosystem in West Africa, the Atwea forest is on the verge of disappearing due to the economic over-exploitation of the range. Commercial bauxite and illegal artisan mining, illegal logging and bush meat hunting is gradually destroying the forest.
Read on or follow the rest of the story in the Video

The forest covers an area of 233,662 hectares, sheltering three major rivers in Ghana-the Ayensu, Birim and Densu. These rivers provide drinking water for both urban and rural dwellers in parts of Accra, Oda, Koforidua and Kade.

The bio-diverse forest also supports a number of rare plants and animals of global and national importance. Currently it has 155 birds, 143 butterflies, and 28 mammal species.

The forest is noted for delivering a variety of ecosystem services and economic benefits.
At the spate of forest degradation, Ghana is losing fauna ranging from the rare and indigenous species to several of West African forest birds.

Major causes are commercial bauxite and illegal artisanal mining in fringe communities, illegal chainsaw logging, bush meat hunting and farm encroachment.

A Rocha Ghana and the Regional Environmental Office of the US Embassy in Accra have taken it upon themselves to educate communities and civil society on protecting the national asset as part of activities marking this year's international earth day celebration under the theme, "green cities".
Ghana celebrated the day under the theme, "our forest in harmony, with our cities".

Monday 12 May 2014

Our National Assest at Stake- Atewa Range in view

Atewa Forest

Known to be the healthiest and most important ecosystem in West Africa, the Atwea forest is on the verge of disappearing due to the economic over-exploitation of the range.

Commercial bauxite and illegal artisan mining, illegal logging and bush meat hunting is gradually destroying the forest.

The forest covers an area of 233,662 hectares, sheltering three major rivers in Ghana-the Ayensu, Birim and Densu.

These rivers provide drinking water for both urban and rural dwellers in parts of Accra, Oda, Koforidua and Kade. The bio-diverse forest also supports a number of rare plants and animals of global and national importance.

Currently it has 155 birds, 143 butterflies, and 28 mammal species.

The forest is noted for delivering a variety of ecosystem services and economic benefits.

At the spate of forest degradation, Ghana is losing fauna ranging from the rare and indigenous species to several of West African forest birds.

Major causes are commercial bauxite and illegal artisanal mining in fringe communities, illegal chainsaw logging, bush meat hunting and farm encroachment.

A Rocha Ghana and the Regional Environmental Office of the US Embassy in Accra have taken it upon themselves to educate communities and civil society  on protecting the national asset as part of activities marking this year's international earth day celebration under the theme, "green cities".

Ghana celebrated the day under the theme, "our forest in harmony, with our cities."

Thursday 8 May 2014

Community Advised to Protect the Weto Range


The Global Environmental Facility Small Grant Programme has released twenty two thousand dollars towards the protection of the Weto forest reserve in the Volta region.

The project is to help communities improve their adaptive capacity to climate change.
The Weto forest deforestation rate is 2.0% leading to an annual loss of about 135,000 hectares.
Emission data indicates that Ghana has become a net emitter due to high levels of carbon emissions in land use and forestry sector to which the degradation in the Weto Range is a contributing factor.
 It is for this reason that the Global Environmental Facility Small Grant Programme (GEFSGP) is engaging indigenes in the region in a community-Based Enhancement of Carbon Stock through Wildfire Management and Afforestation in the Weto Range
Other civil society organization including the Youth Employment Network is currently educating indigenes on managing the reserve.
Another major problem within the Range is incidence of wildfires/bushfires normally initiated by the farmers in the attempt of clearing lands for farming activities. Bush fires have been identified as a contributor to the depletion of the Weto forest reserve.
134 cases of bush fires were recorded in 2010, as against over 229 cases recorded in September 2011, and this is blamed on farmers practicing slash and burn system of farming.
The Chief Executive of Youth Employment Network Dinah Morris entreated farmers and all stakeholders in the various districts and municipalities to help protect the forest reserve.

Citronella farmers in Western Regions calls for support


Mr. John Donkor,, a Citronella Farmer
Distillers of citronella oil in the western region have called on the government and private institutions to invest in citronella farming for the domestic and export markets. 
The farmers say there's high demand for citronella oil yet due to low productivity, they cannot meet the demand. 
Citronella oil is predominately used for soap making, insect repellent, antiseptic, disinfectant, and aromatherapy. It could also be used by surgical doctors in place of surgical spirit. Citronella grass takes 4-6 months to harvest and about 5 hours to be distilled into oil.
John Donkor is a Citronella farmer and his farm is one of the few well established citronella farmer in Ghana. He called on Government and stakeholders to support farmers whose product are in high demand. 
"We are calling on Government to take this as a national because the citronella oil is high demand across the country. People from far and near to buy, but we lack the machines to produce them in high quantity." 
Citronella grass could also be used as manure for cultivation. "The decomposed citronella grass can also be used as manure to crop vegetables; we will need a machine to grind the decomposed grass it into powder form."  

Ghana gets ready to implement REDD+- Seven Regions to Benefit

Ghana has received 1.1 million dollars from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility of the World Bank to develop its National Strategy to implement the REDD plus project.
The project is geared toward the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
The fund came through the forestry commission climate change unit and it is to concentrate on forest dependent communities across the country.

Tropical forests are being degraded at alarming rates contributing to 20% of the world greenhouse gas emissions,
In 1995 Ghana joined other countries to fight climate change by signing an international agreement called the united nation framework convention on climate change.
Ghana's obligation under the convention among others is to map up mitigation and adaptation measures to reduce the impact of climate change.
In 2007 Ghana developed the interest in joining REDD-plus initiative to reduce emission from deforestation and forest degradation, and to support conservation, sustainable forest management, and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

In 2010, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility of the World Bank approved an amount of 3.4million dollars for Ghana to undertake the red plus project 
However, 1.1 million dollars has so far been released to the country through the forestry commission climate change unit to carry out the implementation phase of the project.
The REDD-Plus project is concentrating on seven forest dependent communities across the country, including the western, Brong-Ahafo, Ashanti, Eastern and Central Regions.
The Programme Manager of REDDplus, Sulemana Adamu spoke about the impact of the programme on the livelihood of forest dependent communities. "REDD+ is one of the adaptation plans Ghana is undertaking to enhance the ecological health to improve climate change resilience. Not only is it going to promote afforestation, it will also generate income for the country. Alternative livelihoods are going to be provided for forest dependent communities so they can desist from cutting down the trees. Currently the project is going to be piloted in seven forestry dependent regions" 

A Civil Society Organisation,Climate Action Network-Ghana,held a workshop to create awareness and to facilitate local community’s involvement in REDD+ management and implementation in the country.

The Chief Executive Officer of the network, Samuel Dotse called on all and sundry including stakeholders and forest dependent communities to support the project when it is finally started.

Probable ways of investigating issues pertaining to food inspection; Restaurants in focus

Investigative journalism involves exposing to the public matters that are concealed –either deliberately by someone in a position of power, or accidentally, behind a chaotic mass of facts and circumstances that obscure understanding. It requires using both secret and open sources, and documents.
Investigative journalism never provides an instant story. It goes through recognized stages of planning and reporting, and has to work to accepted standards of accuracy and evidence. And this could take weeks and months to write and research.
A successful investigative journalist must be curious have an inquiring mind and be very meticulous enough so as to unearth the truth. They are also initiative, flexible, and fair with strong ethics. In the quest to getting to the root of an issue to ascertain the precision also requires taking ethics into serious consideration. Since investigative reporting often takes time and carries legal risk, it is prudent to carefully plan, verify information, being very critical about checking and rechecking facts in order to minimize harm.
As far as investigative journalism is concerned, several methods have been propounded to unravel the truth about issues. They include surveillance, survey, interview, and documentary. Depending on the case in focus, any of the methods could be used. However, considering food inspection, all the methods could be applied to unravel truth.
Food inspection is done to ensure that best practices are employed in terms of cooking and food preservation as well as to save the public from food poisoning.
Therefore taking up the challenge to investigate into such activities is very crucial to public health. An investigative journalist who wants to unravel how food inspection is done could for instance get an undercover job as a food inspector. This way they could critically observe the activity of inspectors and have easy access to any food inspection document for evaluation as well. The reporter having secure the undercover job, could also have access to any restaurant of their choice and have the opportunity to do a thorough observations of procedures and conditions under which food is prepared. Where procedures contradicts known processes or defined procedures, find out what influences the lack of compliance.
Where it is observed that inspectors are not skipping inspections yet food is not prepared under hygienic conditions, the journalist could probe into who usually inspects the restaurant in question. Is it the case that the inspector has no idea about what to inspect? Or his palm is greased so that operators could have the lee-way to put the publics’ health into jeopardy. Being and insider could also help the investigative journalist to easily lay hands on documents or demand for documents which has records on the health condition of workers. This will ascertain if cooks are void of communicable diseases and in fact the last time workers underwent screening.
 Note however that getting an undercover job as a food inspector might be difficult. In this case one could observe from a distance by means of electronic equipment (such as CCTV cameras), or low-technology methods such as human intelligence agents
The investigative journalist could administer survey to investigate the problem. Survey involves sampling and it could be probability and non-probability sampling methods.
The investigative journalist uses probability sampling when conducting a general investigation about restaurant operations. In this case the investigator randomly selects any restaurant from sampled ones and use questionnaire to measure the attitude of restaurant operators.  However, if investigation is based on a tip off the investigator would have to conduct a purposive sampling.
Once the sampled restaurants are contacted survey data collection is done, the investigator could compare data and experience with what the relevant legislation set out, and note the failures in compliance.
Surveying a sampled population (restaurant) would reduce the amount of work that it would take to survey the entire target population.
Interviews are the most common tools of journalism and investigative journalist could apply that. As is it explained by Silverman, 1997:13, interview is a purposive conversation to elicit response, information or answers to an issue. It could be structured, standardized, semi-formal guided conversations and free-flowing informational exchanges. All interviews are interactive.
In the situation where the investigator is conducting a general investigation, they could pose as customers of a restaurant and try to engage cooks and waiters to fish for information
But if it is based on tip off, they could endeavor to have an undercover job as cooks, to help them interrogate their supposedly co-workers to find out why something is not done well. They could use the opportunity to interview experts on the field to have enough idea about what is expected of restaurant operators.
He uses his powers of observation to take graphic descriptive notes and paints word-pictures of what he observed. Investigative journalism should however beware of axe grinders in this case.
Documentary evidences are very vital in investigative journalism. The investigator must find out whether or not there are open sources – public documents, news reports, and so on – that can serve to verify or elucidate parts of their hypothesis. If so, consult them first in order to have a better understanding of the story before speaking to people.
Incident reports: Agencies like the Food and Drugs Board, the Environmental Protection Agencies, and the Standards Board have laid down rules and regulations that restaurant operators are supposed to follow. But employees make “mistakes.” The occasions when such errors or mishaps occur, require an official report will be spelled out in the agency’s manual or legal codes. Demand those reports.
Inspection reports: should a disaster occur, find out inspectors responsible for inspecting the facility. Look for reports and their authors. But if there’s no report, that’s a story: Why wasn’t the agency watching? If there is, and it predicts a disaster, why was nothing done to prevent it?
The reporter could also tracked previous reports of attempts by political organizations to get government action, and incorporate that information into his final story too.
In the nutshell, an investigative reporter could have to use all the tools above to unearth truth.

Should parliamentary reporting be limited to straight news reporting?

Public affairs reporting refer to the coverage of government activities-federal, state, local government officials (elected officials and others) and agencies, Politics, Police and crime. It also includes the reporting of criminal and civil court cases, public safety issues, accidents, community news, schools and education.
As far as public affairs reportage is concerned, parliamentary reporting is an activity in line with public affairs reporting.
Building an informed society and encouraging an exchange of ideas is essential for good governance and development. Part of building an informed society includes informing the public about parliamentary proceedings; broadcasting parliament can convey more fully the substance and flavor of how parliament works.
It can also take many different forms, whether it is a simultaneous broadcast or edited footage that can be used by the media to report on parliamentary business. Broadcasting parliament could also be a feature. Whichever way, parliamentary reporting assist the media in providing coverage of newsworthy issues and legislation on which parliament is deliberating.
Journalists as representative of the media, and citizens, are entitled to reasonable access to parliament. However, the media are in a special position in that they are also representatives of all those citizens who are unable to attend parliament, but who wish to be informed about what occurs in parliament. Accordingly, the media act as citizens’ eyes and ears to parliament.
Straight news unlike a feature presents stories just as it is without the reporter infusing their opinion. It states the facts as it and credit information to a source. Straight news affords the reporter to escape contempt of parliament. But with a feature story, the tendency of a reporter committing contempt of parliament is high. Parliamentary reporting is therefore best limited to straight news reporting. However it could be human interest considering the sort of heckling that usually goes on in the house and in this case the reporter could add their opinion and play the devil’s advocate. But where it is to inform the public about proceedings and debates, straight news is preferable.
A good reporter is open-minded and determined to give fair treatment to all the arguments they witness.  A bad reporter lets his or her own views interfere. This is particularly true in reporting political controversy.  It is not for the parliamentary reporter to decide which argument is the strongest.  Instead, the good reporter lays out all the arguments, fairly and accurately, and lets the audience decide for itself.
Parliament is a sovereign institution and that it’s right of access does not justify poor behavior or activity that breaches parliamentary privilege. Therefore whichever way a reporter chooses to report news from parliament must not cause any breach to parliamentary privilege. Meanwhile parliament must be prepared to deal with situations where journalists report on information that is leaked from people attending closed committee deliberations. The reporting of the information from closed committee deliberations may constitute contempt of parliament. However, parliaments should only take disciplinary action against journalists if what has been reported is false or incorrect.