Kubiti Teak Plantation Group

Location: Jasikan, Volta Region, Ghana

Team Members: Edith Adjei, Mary Adzoa Donkortabi, Asiome Amedagbe, Mark Anku, Clifford Dzidoma, Jasper Kofi Dzidonu, Samuel Kossi Agbanyo Sema, Clifford Kwaku Agbley, Nayo Lawrence, Esther Sunu Nana Yaah

This team was originally formed with 10 members to protect the environment while raising much needed funds for their families. In Jasikan, trees are indiscriminately cut down by illegal chainsaw operators. Clear cutting damages the forest ecosystem, changing it to more of a farm-like landscape. It also causes greater temperature fluctuations in the area, increases soil erosion and runoff of materials to streams and lakes, and reduces biodiversity. The team received teak seedlings and training from their district’s Forestry Department and planted the seedlings on land that they secured through the land tenure system in Ghana. They then established a nursery to raise the seedlings themselves, which they planted around homes, along roads, and at the edges of rivers, or sold to private individual farmers. The team has planted a total of 15,000 trees, served as consultants on similar projects in their community, and helped encourage a forestry system based on selective felling rather than clear cutting.

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