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Planting bamboo along riverbanks helps mitigate the effect of climate change and serves as a source of livelihood. Bamboos can substitute the dwindling wood supply. They are 40 times more environmentally friendly than wood, cost one fourth of the cost of the wood and only take four years of planting before harvest. A study from 2002 to 2005 to investigate the use of bamboo in rehabilitating critical riverbanks showed it has great potential for controlling soil erosion. Ghana is a West African country slightly smaller than Oregon in the United States. Its total area is 238,540 km² and its land 230,020 km². Ghana’s land use is as follows: arable land 5%, permanent crops 7%, meadows and pastures 15%, forest and woodland 37%, and others 36%. Its population is 21 million. Since the colonial era, the exploitation of timber for commercial purposes has been part of the Ghanaian economy. But it is only since the start of the economic reform programme known as Economic Recovery Program (ERP) in 1981 that deforestation has become a serious concern for the environmental balance of the region. Since 1981, the annual rate of deforestation in Ghana has been 2% a year or 750 hectares each year. Ghana’s tropical forest area is now just 25% of its original size. The major buyer of Ghanaian timber is the European Union. The impact of deforestation is widespread, affecting the livelihoods of local people, disrupting important environmental functions and severely disturbing the biological integrity of the original forest ecosystem.
Way forward In Asia and other parts of the world, the solution to minimising deforestation has been found. Bamboo. The potential that bamboo (bambasa vulgaris) offers to help conserve forest and promote income generation at local and international levels has long been known among stakeholders in many countries, particularly Asia, where bamboo has proved a good alternative to timber. A large-scale bamboo plantation, especially along the Volta River, could protect river sources, generate huge profits and create many jobs opportunities. This will be a community-based development and complement government policy on youth employment. In cases where bushfires destroys other plantation along the rivers, bamboo could resist and restore cover faster. In Ghana, the plant can be used as in Asia, in gardens, as building material, in making musical instruments, aesthetic objects and baskets and even interior decoration – which is quite common in parts of Europe. Bamboo should be use as a replacement for both hard and soft woods, and their poles or culms are strong enough to reinforce concrete and act as scaffolding on skyscrapers. Thorny bamboos, for example, make excellent security or stock-proof hedges while the taller, straight culms provide effective windbreaks. Further benefits are intended for the Volta River which serves as a main source of water for hydropower in Ghana. Bushfires can destroy river ecology, but bamboo offers a way of maintaining and controlling the impacts. The project seeks to use bamboo plantations as a buffer zone to protect the Volta River from the south to the north during the dry seasons.
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