RESOURCES
RESOURCES: PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS
Author : | Michael Kweku Commeh |
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School/Work Place : | Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana |
Contact : | kwekumichael@gmail.com |
Year : | 2015 |
The relationship between man and nature dates back to the millennia. The intimacy of man-nature interaction increased with decreasing healthy nature, as man’s insatiable desire to know and control nature as a commodity becomes more dynamically complex. It is in this context that Mole National Park (MNP) and its wider stakeholders are being examined to understand the fundamental values that will engender a healthy relationship between stakeholders and the National Park.
The work dealt with stakeholders whose activities are connected to Mole National Park: communities around the National Park (NP); tour operators near and far; tourists; government; traditional administration and indigenous people; through to farming communities that span 100km radius around the park. The work exploratively identified biomass energy demand and farming activities as externalities that threatens MNP. The conflict associated with man’s activities with nature to survive has come with biodiversity loss, unpredictable climate change with its associated food insecurity.
This paper is about understanding the meaning of underlying narratives of stakeholders to identify shared ethical value(s) that will motivate them to be committed in enhancing effective management of MNP. It is about how dialogue between man and nature has evolved in post-modernist Africans and how they understand their relationships first amongst themselves (Abel et al., 1998) and then with nature, and probably why. The paper observes trust and survival values as major parameters having an effect on a quality relationship among stakeholders, and their dialogue with Mole National Park as one of the causes of nature mismanagement. The question is: how can one enhance this to effectively manage it? What are the elements needed for stakeholders to be committed to the sustainability of MNP?