Reclaiming Nature:
Exploring modern Ghana
I am deplaning in Accra after an 11 hour flight and I feel as though I am walking slowly through a thick dream. I exit the plane and walk down a runway lined with hazy, lush, plant life and giant palm trees. Inside the airport, employees speak english with heavy accents and motion me towards customs. Soldiers in different colored uniforms walk the hallways with AKs slung over their shoulders. It is January but Christmas decorations still hang from the walls and doorways. I like that no one here is in a rush here to put an end to the holiday. And I like that everything here is entirely new to me.
Once outside, I load my bags onto a bus and begin the journey through the city and to my hotel. Accra, the capital and economic hub of Ghana, is a loud and lively city, covering over 87 square miles of the West African country. Everyone is selling goods here— Jesus calendars, clocks, water bottles, plantain chips, paintbrushes, bread, pineapples, sunglasses— and they cluster at stoplights, toll booths, and weave in and out of traffic. They knock on car windows and try to catch our eye as we drive past them in the bus. Almost everyone carries their goods in large baskets or buckets that are perched on top of their heads. Their balance is perfect.
Africa is a continent known for its diverse and beautiful landscapes, wildlife population, and abundant natural resources. Ghana, the first sub-saharan country to gain independence from the United Kingdom, is no exception. The West African country covers an area of over 92,098 square miles and is home to hundreds of different species of mammals, reptiles and amphibians including leopards, aardvarks, chimpanzees, and many others. The geography varies greatly and is often divided into five main geographical regions: the low sandy shore of the coastline, the high planes of northern Ghana, the forested plateau region of southwest and south-central Ghana, the hilly mountain ranges of the east, and the Volta Basin of central Ghana.
I am to spend time traveling through nearly every region of this varied landscape over my next three and a half weeks in the country. After flying into Accra, I begin working my way north through the Volta region and visit the country’s second largest city of Kumasi before heading to some less-populated areas that showcase the region’s natural resources.
Unfortunately with great beauty and resources come great complications. Although Ghana is a stable, thriving modern-day African country, the scars of colonialism remain. Ghana was recognized as a great natural resource and careless foreign control caused much of the land to be destroyed- stripped bare for mining and forestry companies. Government policy reflects this colonial rule. The first formal forest policy statement was released in 1946, approved in 1948, and remained in effect for nearly half a century. Emphasis was not on the preservation of land or the conservation of precious wildlife but focused instead on the expectation that all unprotected land would eventually be destroyed for agricultural use. While the 1948 policy focused on a few good things- the establishment of permanent forests, scientific research- it became clear by 1994 that with changing technology a global environmental crisis, a new policy needed to be created.
Ghana's 1994 forest policy therefore, "provides an additional basis to develop a national forest estate and a timber industry that provides the full range of benefits required by society in a manner that is ecologically sustainable and that conserves our environmental and cultural heritage." (FCGhana). Much of Ghana's land is now controlled and protected by the Forestry Commission of Ghana, a corporate body that is responsible for maintaining and regulating forest and wildlife resources and creating policies related to the use of the land. The FCG rules over five agencies that were combined with its creation: the Forest Services Division, the Wildlife Division, Timber Industry Development Division, Wood Industries Training Centre, and the Resource Management Support Centre.
The Wildlife Division is perhaps the most visible, at least to the tourist's eye. It monitors all wildlife in 16 Wildlife-Protected Areas, 5 coastal Ramsar Sites (a global Convention on the Wetlands, signed in 1971) and zoos in Accra and Kumasi- an area of over 13,000 square miles. National parks and conservation areas are vital to the well being of Ghanaian wildlife in addition to the country's economy.
The largest of these areas is Mole National Park; the 4,840 sq km area is home to over 90 mammal species including buffalo hartebeest, elephants and over 300 bird species. It covers two main physiographic regions: a small part is in the savannah high planes while the rest covers the Voltaian sandstones basin. After a week of exploring some of the country’s more populated areas in the south, I approach the wildlife preserve via Larabanga, a village in the west Gonja district. The road to Mole is dangerous, dusty and full of holes. We pass a truck about halfway in that has toppled over on its side, spilling its contents all over the road. It had been carrying large sacks of some sort of grain— corn maybe.
The bus bounces around so much that I fear we’ll tip as well. The engine gets louder and louder and rattles more and more. We pass villages that are different from others we had seen. These are houses made of mud bricks and steep thatched roofs made of long grass. They look like they would burst into flames if a match were lit within a mile of them. We see several fires along the route, which were supposedly controlled burns to clear land for farming. One is an eerie circle of flames, surrounded by white birds, some hovering just above the ground, others pecking the ground looking for food.
Upon arrival at the Mole Motel, I am shown to my room and am advised to check my shoes for scorpions each morning. Running water is unpredictable and lizards in the bedroom are not uncommon—at is in Mole is much more wild and untouched than a lot of the wilderness that I have seen thus far.
After a sleepless night I head back to park headquarters for a jeep tour. Just around lunchtime, some English tourists spot two elephants from the observation deck by the pool. I run over to see the huge animals. They are difficult to find, moving in and out of the trees and brush so the guides promise to take us down to where they are. The park is said to have a resident population of over 800 elephants
We take an ancient black Land Rover and I ride inside a tire on the roof rack. The ride is bumpy and beautiful and I feel like I am on top of the world. We would stop for a few seconds when the guide spots any animals, mostly warthogs and varieties of antelope. The guide sitting on the roof with us yells down to the driver in an Ashanti dialect and we continue in the supposed direction of the elephants. We finally stop in a clearing and hike through the bush and over a river to get to the general area. After ten minutes pass, I begin to worry that we will have to turn around when all of a sudden a girl hushes everyone and points to the right, through a cluster of trees. There, moving slowly and soundlessly, are two enormous male African elephants. They are like creatures from another planet, not animals living in their natural environment.
I can’t get over their sheer size, their massive ears. They are downright humbling. The guide allows us to get close and we follow them through the trees on the dry cracked ground and onto a hill where they go to lick the ground that is rich in salt and other minerals. Then we let them continue on as if they were never there.
On the jeep back, the sun began to set. In Ghana, the sand blown down from the Sahara during the dry season makes the sky very hazy. At sunset, there is so much haze that you can look directly at the orange sun and it doesn’t hurt your eyes. I watched the sun set in the west as the moon rose on the left of the jeep, both hanging in the sky at the same time. It was a good day.