We were earlier dealing with local gangs in the matter of the illegal felling and export of the protected yet exposed rosewood trees. Not so any longer, as the subject has become sophisticated and requiring a high level of expertise in managing.
With the issue assuming a rather complex coloration of international dimension our ability to scale the hurdle has never been so Herculean. The actors will do everything to have their way the inhibiting factor being our determination and commitment to stop them in their tracks. For now such a commitment is not total.
The recent seizure of a consignment of the internationally protected species of trees in Ghana, on transit and destined for an Asian destination is a suggestion that we stand down our guard at our peril.
While we commend the state agents whose sense of patriotism led to the detection of the protected logs we nonetheless fret over the possibility that some might have escaped attention and more complex plots being hatched to outwit the state.
Our integrity as a nation is on the line if those behind the nefarious activities continue on the smuggling path of the rosewood and succeeding.
The reality now is that the issue is two-dimensional one of which dimension is more complex in terms of reach.
How would we have thought that the sophisticated smugglers would think out this nasty and complex mode of using Ghana as a transit location in the long voyage to Asia?
Our security agents are now faced with the local felling of the rosewood trees and the use of the country as a transit point for the international business in rosewood.
It is not going to be an easy assignment for the various security agents. The state requires the support of non-state actors who sometimes know so much, their information in such matters highly valuable.
We have not wavered in our position that education in such matters is crucial. How many Ghanaians know the rosewood tree and why it is being protected let alone the fresh mode of smuggling it through Ghana?
A few weeks ago Nigerian customs officials seized a large consignment of rosewood which unsurprisingly were destined for an Asian country.
Ghana as a signatory to the International Convention On The Protection Of Endangered Species of Trees should be the last country to be identified with the breaches of the convention.
The cost to the country’s image would have been enormous were the seized consignment eluded our watch and same exposed on the international space.
This is not the time for Ghana to suffer such an avoidable image-dent as we continue to hold our heads high in the comity of respected nations.
The Lands And Natural Resources Minister could not have reacted better than he did when he announced the quest for more sanctions against culprits.
Seizure of vehicles involved in the smuggling of the logs among other measures should serve as appropriate response to the deliberate abuse of our laws as he proposed. We could not agree more except to add more stringent sanctions should be thought out.
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