Empirical evidence of the impact of commercial charcoal production on Woodland in the Forest-Savannah transition zone, Ghana

Abstract The impacts of charcoal production on woodland were assessed in the Forest-Savannah Transition Zone of Ghana to facilitate policy formulation for a win-win situation for both sustainable woodland management and charcoal production. Twenty-three harvested sites in two charcoal producing communities were assessed in terms of the extent of harvested sites, changes in biomass carbon stock and tree basal area. The boundary of each site earmarked for charcoal production was mapped with a hand-held Global Positioning System, and the diameters at breast height ( d bh ) and the heights of trees of d bh  ≥ 5 cm were measured, prior to harvest. The extent of harvested sites was compared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change criterion of “devegetation” using Wilcoxon test, while the biomass carbon and basal area of the harvested trees were compared with those of the remnant trees using Mann Whitney t-test. The median of the extent of harvested sites ( M  = 0.23 ha, P  = 1.00) was significantly higher than 0.05 ha, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change minimum criterion for “devegetation”, while the difference between median basal area of harvested and remnant trees was significantly greater than zero (G h  − G r  = 2.6 m 2  ha −1 ; P = 0.001) at 95% significant level. The Mann Whitney test also provided sufficient evidence (n = 23; M hc  −  M rc  = 12.07 t ha − 1 ; P per se . Therefore, the evidence of the impact of charcoal production on woodlands shown in this study should be basis for sustainable woodlan...