November 10, 2021
By Ibrahim Jabatti
The National Council for Civic Education and Development (NaCCED) and the Ministry of Environment (MoE) concluded nationwide duty-bearer dialogue sessions and community civic engagement on the National Tree Planting Project (NTPP) implemented by the Ministry, on Saturday November 6th 2021, in Songo, in the Western Region. This event targeted project stakeholders that included, but not limited to, service providers, Councilors, women’s leaders, youth leaders, and Headmen.
Addressing the august gathering, Mr. Kissma Gassama, the Director of Communications and Outreach recounted the history of NaCCED with a mandate anchored on the President’s vision of an informed and engaged society for national development. He stressed that understanding basic rights and corresponding responsibilities are critical to national development, and that NaCCED was established to champion this nation-building agenda. He noted further that the Council was supporting MoE to promote community ownership of the project because there were concerns bordering on project stakeholder support at community level. He said climate change is real – humidity, less water, etc., but maintained that the tree planting project would reverse the trend. “We are here to solicit the support of the community so that this tree planting project succeeds and helps us fight climate change,” he said.
He appealed to participants to support the project, and stressed the need to engage their respective constituents in the communities they represent after the session.
Mr. Lahai Kpaka, Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Environment focused on the establishment of the new Ministry of Environment and the compelling motivation behind this strategic move. He drew the attention of stakeholders to the devastating landslide incident on August 14, 2017, at “Mortomeh” community, at Regent in Freetown, which killed hundreds of people. According to him, “that was as a result of climate change”. He said that climate change could also affect fishes through human activities such as dumping plastic materials into the sea.
The Ministry, he said, “was created to work with all stakeholders in the environmental protection sector”. Mr. Kpaka said that there are two types of trees the project caters for, ecological and economical trees, “and that the latter is intended to cushion the financial burden associated with this type of project, from income generated from sales of proceeds after harvest”, he noted. He concluded with an appeal for community support for the project.
It could be recalled that this nationwide stakeholder and community engagement was launched by Mr. Kalilu Totangi, NaCCED Chairman, on September 17, 2021, in Koinadugu. Among relevant stakeholders that participated in the event were the Paramount Chief of Yagala Chiefdom, councilors, service providers, youth leaders, women’s leaders, local farmers, Timber Association representatives, among a host of other groups of people. This engagement was also organized in Bombali, Port Loko, Kenema, and Bo in the Northeast, Northwest, East, and Southern regions of the country respectively. On each occasion, stakeholders discussed their experiences as well as challenges affecting the project. Among them were, timeliness and the planting season, access to land, labor cost, other competing income generation activities in the communities (like commercial bike riding, coal burning, sand mining, etc), among others. Participants appealed to government to continue to support the project, to increase the number of service providers, align project activities with the planting season, to list a few. Prior to each session, radio programs were hosted where representatives of NaCCED and the Ministry engaged the public on the project, its benefits and the inherently critical roles of project host communities.