The Last Green Lung: Achimota Forest Spared from Development

By Prof. Jeffery Haynes

Ghana’s environment scored a small victory on 24 June 2026: The government revoked Executive Instrument E.I 144 as amended by E.I 234. This decision enables Achimota Forest to retain its original status as a Forest Reserve. Now, Achimota Forest can again function as an environmental safety zone for Accra and surrounding areas, acting as a primary ‘green lung’ and ecological shield. Achimota Forest is the only gazetted forest reserve within the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area and its preservation directly affects millions of urban residents’ public health, safety, and climate resilience.

The forest provides vital ecosystem services and protection across several key areas, including flood mitigation and water management, by absorbing torrential rain, helping to prevent perennial flooding and reduce soil erosion. The recent floods, supercharged by climate breakdown, underlined that nations, including Ghana, are unprepared. Preserving Achimota Forest is step, albeit a small one, in helping protect Ghanaians from climate breakdown.

Why is Achimota Forest environmentally crucial?

Given the its position – directly adjacent to major, heavily congested transit roads – Achimota Forest has a crucial role in preserving air quality and helping control pollution, by helping to filter vehicular emissions. In addition, the forest has an important role in mitigating respiratory illnesses by trapping dangerous airborne particulate matter and toxic exhaust pollutants, while helping generate clean oxygen, continuously replenishing the city’s oxygen supply while, in effect, ‘scrubbing’ the air cleaner.

But the list of the forest’s benefits do not end there. In addition, it helps cool the microclimate: the tree canopy significantly lowers ambient temperatures, countering the urban heat island effect. Moreover, the massive biomass acts as a vital carbon sink, absorbing greenhouse gases to fight climate breakdown.

Then there is the important role of the forest in helping preserve biodiversity and protecting wildlife. The forest is one of Ghana’s fast-declining natural habitats, providing a safe sanctuary for indigenous birds, mammals, and beneficial insects, helping shield wildlife from intense urban encroachment, poaching, and noise. The forest is also home to a significant conservation facility, the Accra Zoo.

Finally, the forest has an important role in public well-being and mental health: providing a serene space, a quiet, natural retreat for recreation, stress relief, and mental clarity, as well as a spiritual enclave. Many local residents rely on the forest’s quiet, peaceful setting for prayer and meditation.

From Achimota Forest to all of Ghana

The preservation of Achimota Forest is one – small – step in the fight to preserve Ghana’s green spaces and national parks from development, including logging and illegal mining (galamsey). The decision to preserve the forest must be followed by decisive action to implement an integrated approach combining strict enforcement, community inclusion, and technological monitoring.

The following steps would create a strategic framework to safeguard Ghana’s critical ecosystems. First, upgrade legislative and judicial protection. This includes swift repeal of destructive policies: Ghana must permanently revoke or amend legislative instruments—such as L.I. 2462—which previously opened up restricted forest reserves to commercial mining activities. Establish ‘green’ courts, that is, specialised environmental courts to fast-track prosecution of illegal miners, loggers, and corrupt officials. Enact strict forest zoning: Legally reclassify Achimota Forest as a rigorous nature reserve, completely banning any commercial or residential zoning changes.

Second, deploy advanced technology for surveillance. Measures include: real-time drone monitoring, involving automated drone fleets equipped with thermal imaging to detect unauthorised night-time mining and logging operations; satellite remote sensing: partner with space agencies to utilise radar satellite data, which penetrates cloud cover to spot early canopy loss and illegal access roads; and acoustic monitoring devices: install ‘forest guardians’ – that is, solar-powered microphones hidden in tree canopies—to detect chainsaw and heavy machinery noises.

Third, bolster ground enforcement and security by bolstering ranger units, with a significant funding increase to the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission to hire, train, and properly arm park rangers. Inter-agency tasks forces must deploy permanent military-forestry joint patrols along the borders of highly vulnerable zones like the Kakum and Mole National Parks. There is also an urgent need to construct eco-friendly, reinforced perimeter barriers around urban-fringe reserves, including Achimota Forest, to stop land encroachment.

Fourth, foster Community-Based Natural Resource Management. The benefits include alternative livelihood programmes to provide state-backed training and micro-loans for sustainable farming, beekeeping, and ecotourism to communities bordering national parks, as well as revenue-sharing models to allocate a direct percentage of national park ecotourism revenue to local traditional councils to incentivise community-led conservation. Finally, empower – and pay – local youth as paid ‘Community Forest Sentinels’, acting as the front line of intelligence against external illegal operators.

Fifth, transition to eco-tourism and sustainable funding. Partner with reputable international conservation organisations to co-manage national parks, bringing in private funding and transparency. In relation to Achimota Forest, this could include low-impact canopy walks, and a wildlife rescue centre and educational hub to highlight that preservation is more economically valuable than its destruction. Another measure is carbon credit integration, by including Ghana’s primary forests in global carbon markets such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and freeing entities to buy and sell credits generated by protecting tropical forests to secure sustainable, long-term international funding for conservation.

In conclusion, Ghana must do much more to preserve its precious natural environment. Preservation of Achimota Forest should kick-start action across the country. Government must put its money where its mouth and act – fast – to preserve what is left of the country’s fast-declining natural environment.