Regional News of Saturday, 18 October 2014

Source: GNA

Professor Peter Kwapong, an Entomologist at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), has advised Ghanaians to change their attitude towards the environment, to conserve biodiversity to facilitate national food security.

He said fruits and seeds serve many purposes in the lives of man and in the economies of countries, and proper management of pollinators (animals whose activities perform the eco-system of pollination) would improve on food productivity.

Pollination is the reproduction in flowering plants, through the transfer of pollen grains from the anther to the stigma. Prof Kwapong, who is the National Coordinator of Global Pollination Project-Ghana, gave the advice at a media training workshop on the Project at Dumasua, in the Sunyani West District of Brong-Ahafo Region.

The two-day workshop was attended by 30 journalists, drawn from Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo Regions. It was aimed at empowering the participants in creating a change in public awareness on biodiversity conservation through environmental education.

Ghana is selected among seven countries to pilot the Global Pollination project, which is aimed at improving food security, nutrition and livelihoods through enhanced conservation and sustainable use of pollination.

Other implementing countries of the five-year project, which started in 2009, and being funded by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, United Nations Environment Programme and the Global Environment Fund include Brazil, India, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan and South Africa.

Prof Kwapong observed that the attitude of Ghanaians towards the environment is very poor and negatively affects the reproduction process in plants as the lives of pollinators are extinct day-in and day-out.

Pollination, he explained helps to create clean environments that encourage many organisms to thrive, thus, improving biological diversity of the environments in both aquatic and terrestrial terrains.

Read the original:

Ghanaians advised to promote biodiversity