As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility and efforts to protect and preserve the environment, telecom giant Vodafone Ghana has joined in the government’s Green Ghana initiative.
The government on Friday began an ambitious exercise to plant five million trees as part of efforts to preserve the environment.
The initiative was championed by the Forestry Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.
Vodafone Ghana, which had already started a similar initiative three years ago, joined in the activity, planting 4,000 trees across the country.
With the hashtag Red loves Green, the telecom giant, in collaboration with the Forestry Commission and the Ghana International School, planted mahogany, cyber and acacia seedlings at the Accra Zoo car park in the Achimota forest.
The Human Resource Director of Vodafone Ghana, Hannah Ashiokai Akrong, explained to the media what went into the decision to plant these trees.
She said, “Vodafone is a purpose-driven organization and one of the pillars under our purpose-led initiative is the environment. So we have taken it upon ourselves to ensure that tree planting is one of the things that we want to do. And starting three years ago and following up on this initiative is something that we’ve taken very close to our hearts.”
She further disclosed future plans for these trees, which include Wi-Fi connectivity for tourists at the zoo.
“Ultimately what we want to do at the Accra Zoo car park is once we’ve planted the trees, we will be coming back to make it Wi-Fi enabled so that when people come, they can sit under the trees and enjoy the Wi-Fi.”
The Deputy Greater Accra Regional Manager of the Forestry Commission, George Agbenowoshi, assured Ghanaians of proper care for the seedlings in the coming months.
“We are collaborating with the various MMDAs to ensure that we maintain what we have established because we are not only planting in the forest. We are planting in schools, roadsides, etc. And we have been assured by the MMDAs that what we have planted will be maintained together with the Forestry Commission. We have wisely chosen the species because we have species that are indigenous, are of fast growth, or exotic. So we took into consideration species that may thrive well and the type of soil that they would be planted in,” he explained.