Mr Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Friday announced that the Government has planted over 31 million trees in 2025 under the Tree for Life Restoration (T4L) Initiative, exceeding a target of 30 million trees.
The Minister commended stakeholders for their support in achieving progress towards protecting the country’s biodiversity.
He said this during the launch of this year’s edition of the T4L at the West African Senior High School (WASS) in Accra.
The event, which also marked World Environment Day on June 5, was on the theme: “Forests and Economies: Inspired by Nature, for Climate, for Our Future”.
The theme, he said, highlighted the critical contributions of forests and national development and noted that forests were not only necessary for environmental health but also served as economic assets.
He said the 2026 initiative would focus on post-planting care, monitoring and maintenance, calling on all to ensure that every seedling planted had the best possible opportunity to survive and flourish.
The Minister urged students of WASS monitor the progress of the trees, stressing that the future of environmental sustainability rested in the hands of the youth.
He said rising temperatures, biodiversity loss, pollution, and land degradation continued to threaten the wellbeing of people and ecosystems across the globe.
The Minister said Ghana was not immune to those challenges as the country was witnessing the effects of climate change through rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, flooding, coastal erosion, and declining forest cover.
“Despite these challenges, Ghana remains committed to ensuring environmental sustainability, climate resilience and the sustainable management of our forests and wildlife,” he said.
He said the Government, through a collaborative approach, continued to implement transformative policies and programmes in restoring depleted ecosystems, conserving biodiversity, reducing emissions and building resilient communities.
Dr Hugh C.A.Brown, the Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, said the country’s forest cover was estimated at approximately 6.4 million hectares, covering roughly 27 per cent of the land area of the country.
An estimated 20 per cent of our population depend directly or indirectly on forests for their livelihoods, food and health needs.
Currently a total of over 350 private companies and individuals were engaged in commercial forest plantations within forest reserves, mainly for timber production and carbon credits.
However, in spite of those socio-economic and ecological benefits, deforestation and forest degradation continued, especially in the High Forest Zone, threatening wildlife habitats and biodiversity.
“We have commenced the review of the Forestry Commission Act (Act 571) to make the Commission more effective in executing its legal mandate.”
That, he said, would be done through restructuring and repositioning it to be more capable in confronting current and future challenges while leveraging growth opportunities.