The Living with Wildlife Project in partnership with the Nature and Development Foundation, C. K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS), and Forestry Commission/Mole Park, organised a training workshop on Beekeeping, Grasscutter and Rabbit Farming for five communities on the 23rd and 25th of October 2023 at Tantala in the Mamprugu Mourgduri District in the North East Region of Ghana and Bolenga in the Wa East District of the Upper West Region.
Dr. Asaah Sumaila Mohammed Project Coordinator and Senior Lecturer of CKT-UTAS revealed that improving livelihoods in the Mole Ecological Landscape is founded on the belief that the game lives at the Mole National Park and its corridors are seriously exposed to high levels of poaching for bush meat and body parts trading.
This result from inadequate participatory management approaches and the deficiency in the availability of alternative livelihood strategies such as agroforestry systems and nature-based livelihoods support systems posed a threat to the survival of game life.
UKAID funds the project through the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund. The workshop aimed to train and also provide eighty (80) beneficiaries from five communities in the MWK and Chakali Sungmaaluu CREMAs with complete sets of beehives, grass-cutters, rabbit cages, protective clothing as well as essential accessories to enable them to engage in alternative livelihood to enhance income.
The training session was facilitated by Mr. Ebenezer L. Koranteng Manager of the Storey Accres Farms and Consult, who walked participants through an insightful practical demonstration on how to rear grass-cutters and rabbits, knowledge of the sex of these animals, proper handling, feeding, gestation period, weaning of the young once, as well as diagnosis and treatment of grass-cutters and rabbits diseases.
The training on beekeeping was facilitated by Mr. Jacob Y. Abukari, a Beekeeping Technician in charge of the Centre for Youth and Rural Self Project made a practical presentation on the relevance of honey and how to produce honey, types of bees and their functions, maintenance of bee hives, methods of getting bees into hives, practical demonstration of the use of protective cloths, bee colonization and maturity periods for harvesting, bush fires and its socio-economic ramifications.
Aside from that, some carpenters in Tantala and Bolenga communities took participants through the construction and maintenance of beehives and grasscutters and rabbit cage equipment repairs.
The project coordinator presented complete sets of beehives, grass-cutters, rabbit cages, protective clothing, rabbits and grasscutters to beneficiaries.
