By Prince J Musa in Kenema
As part of the efforts in the promotion and protection of reserved areas in the country, the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone (CSSL) has on the 16th June 2021, presented ten new forest rangers to provide additional support to the National Protected Area Authority’s (NPAA) work.
Speaking at the event, the Manager of the Gola Rainforest National Park limited, Francis Musa Massaquoi spoke about the environmental risk factors that humans face due to poor environmental management practices.
Therefore he said the government decided to protect the environment through creating institutions such as Gola rainforest, NPAA, CSSL, EPA, and the establishment of the Ministry of Environment to ensure the management and control of the environment.
Emurana Kemoh Sowa, Coordinator of the CSSL said they decided to recruit additional forest rangers known as “Eco-Guards through the support of the European Union to help NPAA forest rangers in protecting the Kambui forest’’.
He added that the rangers will be given sixty-eight raincoats and sixty-eight rain boots to facilitate their operations during the rainy season. This he said will prevent invaders from penetrating the forests for illegal activities within the forests when the rangers could not be there because of the rain.
‘’Government forest rangers are not enough and we decided to have more rangers trained by the Gola rainforest rangers. Your role as rangers is to work with the community to protect the forest and not to go into violence with the people,’’ he said.
Representing the Executive Director of NPAA, the Manager of Terrestrial Ecosystem at NPAA, Ansumana Babar Turay expressed appreciation to CSSL for demonstrating good partnership in supporting NPAA to conserve the forests.
He said NPAA came in to being in 2012 by an Act of parliament but was under the forestry division, adding that its mandate is to protect all forests in the country so that it can be managed to benefit the country.
Turay commended UNDP and EU for helping their partners. “Kambui hill forest is not a new forest reserve but it came into being in 1918 with twenty thousand hectares covered,” he said.
In his statement, the Senior Director Office of National Security (ONS), Francis Laguba Kellie said the NPAA is working with the security sector under the directive of the president and that whatever enforcement that is being done by them is part of the national security decision, adding that there had been a lot of security threats in the country which is not only limited to gun use but an environmental threat which he said is a major security concern that needs serious attention.
“Sierra Leone has been classed as the third disaster-prone nation in the world because of man’s activities on the environment,’’ he said.
He added that rangers have rights to deal with people that attempt to destroy the protected areas and even prosecute to court based on the Act and that the government has given them full power.
Kellie also admonished the rangers to execute their mandates within the ambit of the law while also admonishing the paramount chiefs to encourage their people to see the rangers as government officials and accord them the needed supports to carry out their work.
Paramount chief of Niawa chiefdom Kenema district, Mariama Tamia Jaward on behalf of her colleague paramount chiefs thanked the government, CSSL, and NPAA for the protection of the forest. She called on the NPAA, CSSL, and the Gola rainforest to make a demarcation between the reserved forests and the communities’ forest and to make alternative livelihood support for the forest edge communities especially in providing them with skills training that will help them.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (18/06/21)
