Ghana Tourism - Boti Water Falls under threat

Source: The Spectator  -  Boti Falls, a popular landmark in the Eastern Region, some few kilometres from Koforidua, the capital city is under serious threat.

The waterfalls, which passes through the Huhunya forest reserve has been turned into farmland for the cultivation of yam, cassava and maize.

The inhabitants in the area are indiscriminately felling trees planted to protect the river for charcoal burning.

“If nothing is done to control the excessive felling of trees which serve as a canopy over the river and the farming activities, there will be nothing like Boti waterfalls,” said a resident.

When The Spectator visited the area last weekend, some women were busily farming a few metres to the waterfalls where visitors assemble before descending the valley to have a glimpse of the beauty of the falls.

The western part of the falls has been converted into a maize farm where flowers and some tree crops used to be nursed for re-afforestation of the destroyed land by the “owners”.

A resident of the area, Mr. Gbakpo, said the land on which the falls is situated belonged to him and his family so they had every right to use it as it pleased them.

“We need to eat and we cannot sit down idle when there is land for us to farm and get food to eat,” he said.

The manager of Kingdom Ventures, the caretakers of the Boti falls, Ms. Miriam Owusu Twum, stated that the activities of the land owners were causing a disincentive to investors.

She said the residents cut the trees protecting the river indiscriminately for charcoal, thereby destroying the soil organisms, forcing the birds to emigrate to other areas and above all, destroying the beauty of the falls.

Ms. Twum said when she complained about the situation to the elders in the area, some of them became infuriated and set fire to security cameras and television sets mounted at the security gate.

It is said that the Pawnpawn River which constitutes the falls takes it source from Ahenkwa-Amalakpo before falling on igneous rock outcrop at Boti Langmase. That is how the most attractive and famous falls in the Eastern Region got its name.

Ancient history had it that, the falls was discovered by a white Catholic priest who used the base as an entertainment ground for his friends and himself.

The falls is located at Huhunya in the Yilo Krobo District and is about 17 kilometres north-east of the Eastern Regional capital, Koforidua.

It is about 30 minutes’ drive from Koforidua and about an hour and half from Accra, the nation’s capital.