By Landing Ceesay
Yankuba Darboe, the Chairman of the Brikama Area Council (BAC), explained that the council is embarking on a tree planting project because Gambians are deforesting the forests without reforesting them.
“So what we are doing today is we, as humans, our activities have been contributing towards what we call climate change. And we all know that this is now affecting almost all of us. We have seen that the rains are very unpredictable now. The patterns have all changed. And this year the predictions are that we are going to have gaps and these gaps are going to be long and that the rain is going to be a lot heavier than usual and is going to cause a lot of disasters.
“Now, the only thing we can attribute to the cause of these things is that of climate change. What that means is that we have been deforesting our forests and not reforesting them. And that’s why this initiative is conceived mainly for us to now also contribute towards helping our climate by planting trees. Because trees are what generate the conducive environment that enables us to have the usual rainfalls that we do, or we would like to have,” Chairman Darboe said.
To this end, the Brikama Area Council (BAC) in collaboration with its partners launched a tree-planting initiative on Saturday to address the pressing environmental challenges facing the West Coast Region. The initiative, dubbed “BAC Green Initiative,” aims to achieve environmental conservation, foster climate-resilient communities, and restore the region’s lost forest cover.
The tree planting exercise was led by the Chairman of the BAC, Lawyer Yankuba Darboe. It began at the Council’s premises and then proceeded to Tanji, Sifoe, and Pirang, where hundreds of trees and coconuts were planted.
As Rapid urban development and deforestation are contributing to climate change vulnerabilities, the BAC Green Initiative is a crucial effort to mitigate these impacts.
The Council will work collaboratively with ward committees and village development committees. Councilors will mobilize relevant stakeholders to encourage active participation from all communities in the region.
The initiative focuses on encouraging individuals to plant at least one tree within their compounds. This will help to foster a sense of ownership and responsibility towards environmental preservation.
Chairman Yankuba Darboe said that planting trees would help the people of the West Coast Region and the country as a whole to experience cooler temperatures. He revealed that Gambia has been one of the hottest countries in the region this year, and he attributed this to deforestation.
“Because when you look at these areas, maybe 50 to 60 years ago, it was all forests. But today, because of human activity, they are all settlements. What we have been doing is, we have been cutting down trees, and building structures, but forgetting to plant trees to enable us to sustain our Climate. And that’s what this initiative is all about, to remind us that this is our responsibility that we need to embark on this in order to save the planet not just for ourselves but for the future generations as well,” he said.