Upper East : it’s unfortunately official

The gradual and alarming disappearance of vegetation cover in the High East region has turned into an unprecedented ecological and economic crisis, transforming what was once a simple seasonal challenge linked to the dry season into a persistent, year-round scourge.

The vast expanses of grassland that once sustained thousands of animals, now stripped bare, have given way to arid lands, plunging local herders and farmers—for whom livestock farming is a vital source of income—into growing concern over the collapse of animal production and the drastic drop in household budgets.

The most striking and desperate illustration of this ecological breakdown is playing out daily in the heart of the districts of Bolgatanga East, Bongo, Talensi, Bawku West and Nabdam, where cattle, goats and sheep in a permanent struggle for their survival are reduced to frantically stripping the bark from the trunks of baobabs and moringas while grazing on their last leaves, an extreme behavior which testifies to the absolute urgency of putting in place pasture restoration measures to save the rural economy of the region.