Forest Management In Ghana Research Articles

Institutional Arrangement for Urban Forest Management in Ghana: Assessing the Role of the Local Communities and Youths

Sustainable management and conservation of urban forests are becoming increasingly important to achieve urban sustainability, thus requiring a unified stakeholder collaboration at different levels. Local communities and youth play essential roles in sustainable urban forest management. This study analyzed the institutional arrangement for urban forest management in Ghana and the involvement of local communities and youth. The research involved an in-depth analysis of environmental institutions in Ghana and used qualitative methods to explore community and youth roles in urban forest management. Findings revealed a lack of a specific institution spearheading urban forest management, leading to overlapping responsibilities and administrative conflicts. Despite their potential, local communities and youth are often excluded from urban forest planning and management, resulting in decreased ownership and misuse of urban forests. Recommendations include assigning clear roles to responsible institutions, designating a specific urban forest management body, and adopting a youth-focused participatory approach for effective management.

Path Dependence, Community Resilience, and Social Responses to the Implementation of Collaborative Forest Management in Ghana

The concept of community resilience has been receiving attention in recent decades as a framework for understanding the capacity of communities to respond to drivers of change while maintaining or enhancing their well-being. However, the process of community response to drivers of change and the factors influencing the change process remain poorly understood. In this study, the community resilience literature was applied in the analysis of community responses to the implementation of collaborative forest management (CFM) in Ghana. Qualitative data were generated from two forest-dependent communities in the Ashanti region of Ghana using key informant interviews and the review of documents. The results highlighted the role of drivers of change, institutions, capital assets, and arenas for interaction in shaping the awareness and motivation, as well as access to resources and opportunities for collective action in both communities. Importantly, community history and context helped explain differences in the responses of the two communities to the implementation of the CFM program. These findings highlight the need for greater recognition of path dependence and other attributes of complexity in resource-dependent communities in order to inform policies that contribute to enhancing community resilience.

The characteristics and impact of small and medium forest enterprises on sustainable forest management in Ghana

Small and Medium Forest Enterprises are considered promoters of local development and growth due to their contributions to over 50% of forest-based employment in some countries like Brazil, Uganda, and India. Despite the many potentials of these enterprises, their operations go unchecked, which poses a serious threat to the sustainability of tropical forests. This study highlights the characteristics of SMFEs and the impact of SMFEs on sustainable forest management in Ghana from a survey of 80 randomly sampled enterprises in seven communities in the Amenfi West Municipality in Ghana. Data was gathered using structured questionnaires and key informant interviews and analyzed with statistical tools in SPSS version 25. The findings show that 71.25% of the SMFEs are not registered with the appropriate authorities like the Registrar General’s department and the Municipal Assemblies. In addition, 55 (68.8%) of these enterprises have a direct dependency on the forest for raw materials with 21.8% of this number claiming to have obtained the needed permits/licenses to harvest the raw materials they need from the forests. For 91.25% of the enterprises, factors such as resource availability and profits drive their activities and 8.75% are driven by access to labor and job creation. The analysis showed that belonging to an association is a significant determinant of business registration at p = 0.001. Forest policies must seek to promote sustainable management of forest resources by enforcing registration and permit laws. SMFEs must be consistently monitored and supervised to ensure that their activities are guided by policy and their compliance rewarded through capacity building and government support.

Management of Sacred Groves and Customary Practices in Pursuit of Sustainable Forest Management

The goal of this investigation was to identify the customary practices on sacred groves and how they can help in achieving sustainable forest management in Ghana. The study examines forest management, deforestation, and sustainable forest management concepts. A case study of Boabeng Fiema Monkey Sanctuary and Malshegu Sacred Groves was explored. Interviews with community members were executed. Also, some secondary data on these two sacred groves were equally examined. The study found that taboos and other cultural beliefs were used to protect the sacred grooves with little government support. The study recommends that the state should make laws through the environmental protection agency and the forestry commission to support the cultural practices to achieve sustainable forest management.

Exploring willingness-to-pay for the restoration and maintenance of reserved forests in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana

In recent years, debates on the alarming rate of forest depletion emanating from growth in urban settlement and changed urban land-use patterns have gained prominence across the globe. The present study adopts a demand-side management approach to investigate household's willingness-to-pay for the restoration and maintenance of protected forest reserves in three municipalities in Ghana. Using survey data of 733 households from the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, we model the demand for forest restoration and maintenance, respectively, by means of the contingent valuation technique. As part of the findings, the study shows evidence that a household is willing to pay Gh¢50.99 ($8.67) and Gh¢31.12 ($5.29) per annum to restore and maintain the protected forests, respectively. These amounts constitute less than one percent of the average household income per month. Consequently, critical validity tests are conducted to validate the robustness of the results. This study provides willingness-to-pay estimates for forest and forest resources, and its associated determinants. These estimates seek to bridge the information gap and inform policy decisions toward the overarching aim of ensuring sustainable forest management in Ghana.

Evaluation of non-market environmental services in smallholder forest plantations with choice experiments in Dormaa forest district, Ghana

Timber production is the focus of forest management in Ghana. Environmental services are scarcely factored into forest management plans. This may be due to a lack of understanding and estimation of the value of environmental services. Using choice modelling, this study attempts to fill the information gap. Non-market attributes of forest plantations were identified from literature and reconnaissance surveys. Conjoint analysis was employed to estimate the value of these attributes. Orthogonal design was used to generate different combinations of attribute levels into profiles. Respondents ranked the profiles from most to least preferred. The results show that water regulation was the most influential attribute in the ranking of choice profiles. Farmers were willing to accept US$114.30·ha−1·year−1 as compensation for improving environmental services. Findings on the non-market environmental services and socioeconomic characteristics of farmers can help forest managers better evaluate actions and policies to enhance forest management.

Harnessing indigenous knowledge for sustainable forest management in Ghana

This paper makes a case for harnessing indigenous knowledge (IK) for sustainable national development in Ghana. IK is the local knowledge that is unique to a given culture or society. It is the basis for local-level decision-making in agriculture, health care, food preparation, education, natural resource management, and a host of other activities in rural communities. According to the World Bank the basic component of any country‟s knowledge system is its indigenous knowledge. It is upon this knowledge that scientific research builds. In Ghana the Government has recognized the need to harness IK for sustainable national development and has therefore incorporated it into the National Science, Technology and Innovation Development Programme. There is no evidence however that scientific research in Ghana bases its activities on IK. The paper discusses the need to take IK seriously in Ghana and establishes its importance as a foundation for scientific research. It discusses the concept of indigenous knowledge in the forestry sector, its relevance in scientific discourse and the need for harnessing IK for national development. It further goes on to give some examples of IK application in the forestry sector of Ghana and emphasizes its importance in forest management. In harnessing indigenous knowledge, several issues need to be considered. For example who owns the local knowledge, who is responsible for validating it, what factors need to be considered during the validation process and what methods can be used to record, store and retrieve the IK identified.

Determinants of the process and outcomes of household participation in collaborative forest management in Ghana: A quantitative test of a community resilience model

This study tested a proposed community resilience model by investigating the role of institutions, capital assets, community and socio-demographic variables as determinants of households' participation in Ghana's collaborative forest management (CFM) program and outcomes of the program. Quantitative survey data were gathered from 209 randomly selected households from two forest-dependent communities. Regression analysis shows that households' participation in the CFM program was predicted by community location, past connections with institutions, and past bonding social capital. Community location and past capitals were the strongest predictors of the outcomes of the CFM program as judged by current levels of capitals. Participation in the CFM program also had a positive effect on human capital but had minimal impact on the other capitals influencing household well-being and resilience, suggesting that the impact of co-management on household resilience may be modest. In all, the findings highlight the need for co-management policies to pay attention to the historical context of community interaction processes influencing access to capital assets and local institutions to successfully promote equitable resilience.

Valuation of ecosystem services for assessment of cost of deforestation, and analysis of its drivers with implications for sustainable forest management in Ghana

The aim of this thesis was to estimate the cost of deforestation and to identify its drivers in the high forest zone of Ghana. The purpose was also to raise awareness about the severity of deforestation and to offer suggestions for its control with a view to contributing to climate change mitigation. To compute the cost of deforestation, the values of four ecosystems’ services were estimated, employing opportunity and replacement cost techniques. The costs of wildfires resulting from loss of food and tree crops of communities were also estimated and deforestation-related behavior modeled using questionnaire surveys. Total Economic Values Framework, von Thunen and Chayanov models formed the theoretical basis of this work. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, multinomial and ordinal logistic regression techniques. The results show that US$133,650,000 of gross revenue from the four ecosystems’ services is lost annually due to deforestation (Article I). In the study area, the annual loss in food and tree crops per farmer due to wildfires was US$232 (Article II). Furthermore, farmers who acquired land on either lease holding or sharecropping basis were more likely to engage in short-rotation farming system, which leads to deforestation, compared to those who acquired land as gift or inheritance or on customary basis (Article III). In the studied protected area (Article IV), subsistence agriculture and large in-migration of people were the most important driving forces behind deforestation. It can be concluded that better employing the indigenous knowledge of how to mitigate and adapt to wildfires would provide a sound basis for an improved wildfire management strategy. To obtain a more equitable distribution of forest benefits, the local policies need to be reformed with particular attention to the sharecrop and leasehold farmland holding systems. Forest revenue sharing systems, including potential payments from Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), must include farmland holders under these holding systems. To enhance Ankasa Conservation Area’s contribution to climate change mitigation, priority must be given to livelihood improvement and ecosystem services provision in its management.

Dependence on forest resources and tropical deforestation in Ghana

In Ghana, forests provide many products on which the local population subsists. However, these resources are depleting due to a variety of factors including agricultural expansion and over-exploitation of forest resources. This paper presents an analysis of the level of local dependence on forest resources and its implications for forest management in Ghana. The paper also outlines the causes of continuing deforestation in the studied region from the perspective of the local residents and discusses what role they could play in addressing the problem. The aim is to share more light on the current causes of deforestation and make suggestions for improved community-based forest management practices that could help to reduce deforestation. Primary data was collected through personal interviews and focus group discussions with 431 household heads randomly selected from three Forest Districts in Ghana. The survey showed that income from agriculture constituted 60% of the average total rural household income. Forest income provided 38% of total household income, and off-farm income 2%. The four most highly ranked causes of deforestation are poverty-driven agriculture, lack of alternative rural wage employment other than farming, household population levels, and conflict in traditional land practices. This shows a shift in the view of local people who in the past were quick to blame logging companies and government policies for deforestation. The majority of the respondents depended on wild animals like snail, bush meat, wild honey and wild and cultivated vegetables. Given the reasons for deforestation, much thought needs to go into agroforestry practices (e.g. snail farming, bee keeping, fish farming, and vegetable production) in efforts to reduce deforestation, which are currently less promoted.

Forest management in Ghana: towards a sustainable approach

This article examines a recent attempt to promote sustainable forest management in Ghana through the Timber Resources Management Act, 1997. It places the Act in the context of massive deforestation and analyses its provisions imposing social and environmental conditions on the timber industry and giving a greater role to local communities. It warns that excessive government intervention may undermine the industry and the important part it plays in Ghana's economy.

Local Resource Management in the Forest-Savanna Transition Zone: The Case of Wenchi District, Ghana

Summary In Ghana's forest‐savanna transition zone, recent ecological debates counterpose the dominant view that human activities cause progressive savannisation of forests, with competing views that the forest‐savanna boundary is relatively stable, and even that people can assist the formation of forest in savanna. Applying the environmental entitlements approach to people‐vegetation interactions in the Wenchi area of Brong Ahafo region, this article shows that ecological outcomes vary for different parts of the landscape, depending on the particular practices of socially‐differentiated land users. The cases of farming by local landowners, farming by immigrants from the north, and charcoal production illustrate how such practices are shaped by diverse local and state‐level institutions, especially land and tree tenure arrangements, with implications for current attempts to develop collaborative forms of forest management in Ghana.

The quest for natural forest management in Ghana, Côte d'Ivore and Liberia

(1996). The quest for natural forest management in Ghana, Cote d'Ivore and Liberia. South African Forestry Journal: Vol. 175, No. 1, pp. 59-59.