Need To Sustain Access To Safe Water In Ghana
In accessing safe water, people normally do not associate that with nature or the natural ecosystem. Ghanaians are well acquainted with getting water from taps, wells, rivers and dams. In Ghana, secured access to water is associated with the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), which distributes water via pipes to most urban and peri-urban areas. So, as long as people have water in their homes, it means GWCL is doing its job. However, behind the taps, wells, rivers and dams, is nature, which cycles, stores, cleans and releases the raw fresh water resource to living beings. How often do we take note that the water that keeps man healthy, powers industry and the economy, come from nature? By nature fundamentally it include, forests, aquifers, soils, lakes, mangroves, wetlands and flood plains. They provide water storage, filter water, lower the impacts of floods, and protect coastal areas.
In other words, it is a viable venture for countries to restore degraded or destroyed water ecosystems like forests, mangroves, lakes, rivers and wetlands. Such restoration is recommended no matter where – whether in the coastal areas, high forest zones, the transitional areas or savannah wood and grass lands. Restoration is crucial because, nature can only continue to deliver its services where ecosystems are healthy and functioning well. As we use and divert water, we must also ensure that ecosystems receive the water they need. Hence, the public outcry against negative human activities that destroy the nation’s freshwater ecosystems is in the right direction. And the perpetuation of illegal mining or galamsey, farming along rivers banks and in river beds, deforestation particularly around heads of rivers, dumping of refuse and chemical residue into water bodies and open defecation, will eventually undermine the sustainable availability of freshwater resources nationwide. If care is not taken the fear of experts that Ghana is likely to import water in the nearest future will happen.
There is therefore the urgent need to continue projects and activities like the “Campaign Against Galamsey,” which analysts say is helping to recover the integrity of some major rivers that had become highly polluted and very dirty like the Ankobra. Indeed, the value of water-related ecosystem services – to people’s well-being, to food and energy security, – to industry, the economy and to the engines of economic growth in cities – make nature a fundamental building block of water security.
Failure to account for, invest in, protect and sustain ecosystem services undermines water security and sustainable development. What should not be forgotten in the development agenda is that the reverse is also true: It is for these reasons and to make people better appreciate the relationship between nature and water, that this year’s celebration of World Water Day has been devoted to that subject, which is key in the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. Following the coming into force of the SDGs two years ago, precisely on 1st January 2016, nations worldwide have a renewed mandate to mobilize efforts to fight major global challenges like secured access to safe water for all by 2030.This means by 12 years from now, per the SDGs, everybody in Ghana for example, must have access to clean and safe water. This will happen based on the existence of a healthy and well-functioning freshwater ecosystem alongside physical infrastructure, built to ensure that people have easy and reliable access to clean and safe water.
BY: AMA KUDOM-AGYEMANG, AN ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALIST.
In other words, it is a viable venture for countries to restore degraded or destroyed water ecosystems like forests, mangroves, lakes, rivers and wetlands. Such restoration is recommended no matter where – whether in the coastal areas, high forest zones, the transitional areas or savannah wood and grass lands. Restoration is crucial because, nature can only continue to deliver its services where ecosystems are healthy and functioning well. As we use and divert water, we must also ensure that ecosystems receive the water they need. Hence, the public outcry against negative human activities that destroy the nation’s freshwater ecosystems is in the right direction. And the perpetuation of illegal mining or galamsey, farming along rivers banks and in river beds, deforestation particularly around heads of rivers, dumping of refuse and chemical residue into water bodies and open defecation, will eventually undermine the sustainable availability of freshwater resources nationwide. If care is not taken the fear of experts that Ghana is likely to import water in the nearest future will happen.
There is therefore the urgent need to continue projects and activities like the “Campaign Against Galamsey,” which analysts say is helping to recover the integrity of some major rivers that had become highly polluted and very dirty like the Ankobra. Indeed, the value of water-related ecosystem services – to people’s well-being, to food and energy security, – to industry, the economy and to the engines of economic growth in cities – make nature a fundamental building block of water security.
Failure to account for, invest in, protect and sustain ecosystem services undermines water security and sustainable development. What should not be forgotten in the development agenda is that the reverse is also true: It is for these reasons and to make people better appreciate the relationship between nature and water, that this year’s celebration of World Water Day has been devoted to that subject, which is key in the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. Following the coming into force of the SDGs two years ago, precisely on 1st January 2016, nations worldwide have a renewed mandate to mobilize efforts to fight major global challenges like secured access to safe water for all by 2030.This means by 12 years from now, per the SDGs, everybody in Ghana for example, must have access to clean and safe water. This will happen based on the existence of a healthy and well-functioning freshwater ecosystem alongside physical infrastructure, built to ensure that people have easy and reliable access to clean and safe water.
BY: AMA KUDOM-AGYEMANG, AN ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALIST.
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