Rights and Responsibilities: The Reality of Forest Fringe Communities in the Northern Region of Ghana

Rikiatu Husseini,Patrick Agbesinyale,Stephen B Kendie

doi:10.5772/intechopen.93550

Abstract

The goal for collaborative forest management (CFM) is to attain sustainable management of forest resources for sustainable development. Securing rights and responsibilities of forest fringe communities is central to achieving effective and sustainable management of forest reserves. This article discusses the rights and responsibilities of the forest fringe communities under Ghana’s collaborative Forest Management (CFM) in the Northern region and explores the levels of awareness of communities of these rights and responsibilities. The survey employed a mixed method research design with community members and forestry staff as key respondents. We found that although Forest fringe communities are entitled to some admitted rights including access to the reserves and the right to harvest nontimber forest products such as thatch, medicinal plants, dry wood for firewood and edible fruits mainly for domestic use; in reality, access to such rights is somehow restricted by the forestry staff. Fringe communities have limited knowledge about their rights and responsibilities to the forest reserve. For sustainability, educating fringe communities on their rights and responsibilities to forest reserves and involving them in management decisions is recommended as the surest ways of securing their interests in CFM.

Highlights

An important guiding principle of the revised forest and wildlife policy is that it recognizes and confirms the importance of local people in pursuing all other guiding principles of the policy, and proposes to place particular emphasis on the concept of participatory management and protection of forest and wildlife resources and to develop appropriate strategies, modalities and programs in consultation with relevant agencies, rural communities and individuals [1]
The study revealed that 310 household heads interviewed (Table 2) are of the opinion that forest reserves are owned by the state or the government whilst only 38 (10.3%) respondents think that forest reserves are owned by the community
The key informants’ interview with chiefs revealed that with the exception of three chiefs (Gulkpe-Naa, the Pusuga naa and Kpatugri naa) who knew that forest reserves are owned by the traditional authorities, 17 of the sampled chiefs believe that forest reserves within their communities are owned by the state and managed by the Forest Services Division (FSD)

Summary

Introduction

An important guiding principle of the revised forest and wildlife policy is that it recognizes and confirms the importance of local people in pursuing all other guiding principles of the policy, and proposes to place particular emphasis on the concept of participatory management and protection of forest and wildlife resources and to develop appropriate strategies, modalities and programs in consultation with relevant agencies, rural communities and individuals [1]. The principles and strategies of the policy of participatory management recognizes the rights of local people to have access to natural resources for maintaining a basic standard of living and their concomitant responsibility to ensure the sustainable use of such. To this effect, since the adoption of the 1994 Forest and wildlife policy, several operations of the Forestry Commission (FC) have been revised to help meet its aim of achieving equitable sharing of benefits and improved efficiency in management, in Southern Ghana [1]. Access to NTFP’s for domestic use had been enshrined in reserve settlement judgments, foresters had over the years not been fulfilling these rights to land owners. As such all current management plans reassert the rights of communities to harvest NTFP’s for domestic use, to have access to fetish sites and other rights as enshrined in original agreements

Methods

Results

Conclusion