Regional News of Monday, 16 February 2015

Source: GNA

Save Our Beaches Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organization, has called on stakeholders and government institutions to put measures in place to help fight the negative human activities destroying the coastal belt of the country.

Mining of sand, the practice of open defecation, and throwing of waste along the shores of the beaches, they said, had caused investors great loss, thereby making the beaches unattractive to tourists.

Paa Kwesi Wilson, Founder of the NGO, in an address to mobilise support to halt the practices and save the sea, said the beaches were important national assets that needed investments to turn them into beautiful resorts that would earn the country some foreign exchange.

However, he said, unfortunately, many Ghanaians did not appreciate the value of the beaches, hence they degraded them with their activities.

He warned that the destruction of the beaches could pose serious implications for human existence and wellbeing.

Ms Peace D. Gbeckor-Kove, Programmes Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA) said the unsafe activities at the beaches had caused erosion, algal bloom and the influx of sargassum species to be forming at the beaches, thus killing aquatic life and leaving the fisher folks unemployed.

She said the dumping of refuse into the sea and not handling waste properly in the country was one of the reasons the EPA embarked on the waste segregation project to help promote the recycling some of these waste materials and to reduce the rate of waste generated.

Ms Gbeckor-Kove recommended the education of people to change their behavior and attitudes towards helping to manage urban waste, reusing and repair of waste produced, saying some of the waste could serve as raw materials for other products.

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NGO calls for seriousness in saving beaches