CULTURAL PRACTICES OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES AS A BIODIVERSITY MANAGERIAL STRATEGY FOR GHANA’S ENVIRONMENT: A RETROSPECTION OF INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS

Dickson Adom; Prince Edem Dzakpasu; Saeed Adam

Volume : VI, Issue : V, May - 2017

CULTURAL PRACTICES OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES AS A BIODIVERSITY MANAGERIAL STRATEGY FOR GHANA’S ENVIRONMENT: A RETROSPECTION OF INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS

Dickson Adom, Prince Edem Dzakpasu, Saeed Adam

Abstract :

Biodiversity depletion with its adverse environmental impacts continues to be a global canker facing numerous countries of the world. To salvage the situation, various countries of the world have signed and ratified numerous international conventions and treaties that have suggested pragmatic measures that are capable of conserving global biodiversity. In these international agreements, the need for an adoption of the cultural practices of local communities as a biodiversity managerial strategy has often been stressed. Document analysis and Interpretative phenomenological analysis under the qualitative research approach guided the thorough review of some of these international conventions that Ghana is a signatory, to justify the significant roles that cultural practices can play in the management of biodiversity in the environment. The study contends that to mitigate and effectively manage the decline of biodiversity in the environment, the cultural practices of local communities must be espoused as an environmental managerial strategy. The research tasks environmentalists, policy makers and biodiversity conservationists to fully emace and incorporate cultural practices of local communities in the planning, decision–making and management of the environment and its biodiversity resources.