Again, the development of a National Climate Change Adaptation Stragegy has been agreed on as a trigger under the Natural Resources and Environmental Governance Programme in Ghana. Stretching more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) along a bank of hills in the Ashanti region of southern Ghana, Tano-Offin Forest Reserve has lost more than 16 percent of its old-growth forest since 2001, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland. Community leader Agya Bomba blamed the now-defunct Ayum Timber Company for the increase in illegal logging in Bia Tano. Part of Tano-Offin is also rich in bauxite, which has prompted the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Corporation to begin establishing mining operations in the reserve. However, that hasn’t stopped logging and other illegal activities from deforesting them. When confronted by the forest guard manning the checkpoint, one of the loggers said a forestry officer from Goaso district had allowed them to cut down trees in the reserve. If you value this objective and impact-driven journalism, please consider becoming a sustaining member. These challenges include waste management, illegal mining, logging, deforestation, noise, water and air pollution. Soil can be swept away because tree roots are no longer there to bind the soil together. Upon hearing that the loggers had official permission, the guard allowed them to proceed. Several areas of the reserve are completely devoid of large trees, while the roar of chainsaws is ever-present, operated with impunity. At this rate of logging, Ghana’s forests would disappear in the next ten years and Ghana would become a net importer of wood (Forest Watch Ghana 2004). Mongabay reached out to Ghana’s Forestry Commission, but requests for comment were not answered by the time this story was published. According to the report, the loss of Ghana’s primary forest cover jumped 60 percent from 2017 to 2018 – almost entirely from its protected areas. factors. However, efforts to protect forests are often stymied. Stretching more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) along a bank of hills in the Ashanti region of southern Ghana, Tano-Offin Forest Reserve has lost more than 16 percent of its old-growth forest since 2001, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland. In the mid-1980s, the government embarked on a US$36 million rehabilitation project to boost the company's production. Problem Statement The deforestation rate has been surprisingly high in Ghana. The forestry sector of Ghana accounted for 4.2 percent of GDP in 1990; timber was the country's third largest foreign exchange earner. Deforestation generally results from inefficient agricultural practices, woodfuel consumption (firewood and charcoal), indiscriminate logging, bushfires and mining activities. While mining has not yet started, infrastructure development is underway, with roads to prospective mining sites currently under construction. WRI found that while mining and logging were partly to blame for Ghana’s deforestation, the expansion of cocoa farms was the main culprit. Acidic Oceans. However, even these are no longer immune to the advance of deforestation, with many hit hard by a surge of forest loss that began in April. Government figures showed that one cubic meter of lumber and plywood was worth more than twice as much as the same amount of logs; veneers earned five times as much; and other products, such as furniture and floorings, earned six times the price of an equivalent volume of logs. Frempong, the Kyekyewere assemblyman, told Mongabay that the community had existed in the forest for more than 200 years, and that its residents had no other place to go. Since 1983 forestry has benefited from more than US$120 million in investments and has undergone substantial changes, resulting in doubled earnings between 1985 and 1990. “Public officials are deeply involved in the illegal activities.”. To end deforestation, Barry Callebaut maps cocoa farms in its direct supply chain within 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) of protected forest areas in the Ivory Coast, Ghana … A century ago, Ghana's tropical hardwood forest extended from about the middle of the country southward to the sea. “If you have come to look for trees in this forest then forget it because we have cut them all,” said a chainsaw operator who was illegally felling trees in the reserve to sell to a local buyer. 11 But it has also resulted in deforestation elsewhere, including in Cameroon, Indonesia and Peru. Furthermore, infrastructure in the Western Region where lumber processing is located continued to be relatively neglected compared with mining and cocoa production regions. Article published by Morgan Erickson-Davis, Alleged gov’t-linked land grabs threaten Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, Fueled by impunity, invasions surge in Brazil’s Indigenous lands, Chinese demand and domestic instability are wiping out Senegal’s last forests, Solomon Islands environmental defender faces life sentence for arson charge, ‘Tamper with nature, and everyone suffers’: Q&A with ecologist Enric Sala, New paper highlights spread of organized crime from global fisheries, Study: Chinese ‘dark fleets’ illegally defying sanctions by fishing in North Korean waters, Game changer? Log production declined by 66 percent during 1970- 81 and sawed timber by 47 percent. He also blamed deforestation on forest-dependent communities, saying “their continuous expansion is destructive to the reserves in which they live.”. The corruption is so widespread, however, that it remains to be seen on whether the Ghanahian authorities will stop timber-related crimes anytime soon.[1]. Bradt Travel Guide to Ghana; Map of Ghana When land is deforested, plant and animal diversity can be lost. “With the project, FoE-Ghana selected some members of the forest fringe communities, trained them to be conversant with forest laws and mobile systems applications … to collect and transmit quality data, which can be in a form of video, audio or picture, and transmit the data onto [a] centralized database,” Acquah said. Bia Tano Forest Reserve is located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of Tano-Offin. The multi-stakeholder Cocoa & Forests Initiative is an attempt at addressing the problems. In 1992 the government began investigating the activities of hundreds of companies, both foreign and local, that were alleged to have entered into a range of illegal dealings including smuggling, fraudulent invoicing, violation of local currency regulations, corruption, bribery, and nonpayment of royalties. He said forest guards intimidated and harassed them whenever they farmed in the forest, alleging that last year they forced a resident of the community to swallow a dry plantain leaf, which Frempong says led to the man’s death a few days later. KUMASI, Ghana — The West African country of Ghana is known for having rich natural resources including vast tracts of rainforest. It’s estimated that deforestation is responsible for around 20% of greenhouse gas emissions and 1.5 billion tons of carbon is released every year by tropical deforestation. Scientist, economist, environmentalist and many others have deliberated that the prevailing patterns of deforestation are bound to wreak havoc on the earth as the home for mankind … These were handed over to officials from the Forestry Commission, which has established a task force to prevent illegal logging. 75% tree cover reflects a dense canopy. The report indicated that Africa has the second highest rate of deforestation worldwide (with 3.4 million hectares of forest loss annually).The situation is not any different in Ghana where forest has been under pressure from human activities over the last century. Illegal logging in Ghana’s forest reserves was confirmed by Musah Abu-Juam, technical director in charge of forestry at Ghana’s Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, who said the practice was ongoing both inside and outside protected areas. Abu-Juam said the government was doing its best to fight back against illegal deforestation. He said this success could be scaled up and urged the involvement of all forest communities. “That is why we are going to resist the mining operation in the forest — to protect our rivers.”. He told Mongabay that deforestation is already affecting water resources. Disclaimer: Mongabay has a funding partnership with World Resources Institute (WRI), which administers Global Forest Watch. Barry Callebaut has a goal of becoming carbon positive by 2025, meaning it will store more carbon than it emits. He also mentioned a recent arrest made when Forestry Commission officials discovered loggers were transporting illegal wood from a reserve by hiding it in coffins. The government later extended the list and imposed high duties on other species, planning to phase out log and air-dried timber exports altogether by 1994. However, Abu-Juam said that although the government of Ghana was making an effort to improve the monitoring mechanisms in the reserves, those involved in the illegal activity often find ways to outwit these measures. Residents have expressed concern about the impacts mining might have on the forest, among them Nana Oppong Dinkyine. The oceans are becoming more acidic with an increased supply of carbon dioxide from deforestation and burning fossil fuels. The Forest Resource Management Project, part of the economic recovery program (ERP), was initiated in 1988, and in 1989 the government banned log exports of eighteen species. But sources say that Forestry Commission officials aren’t just allowing logging here — they’re actively participating in it. According to the World Cocoa Foundation, 2.3 million hectares of rainforest were cleared in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana to make way for cocoa farms between 1988 and 2007. Some of the external financing underwrote these institutional changes, while much of the rest financed forestry management and research as well as equipment for logging, saw milling, and manufacturing. Friends of the Earth (FoE) Ghana, an NGO, has initiated a program called “community-based real-time monitoring” to try and clamp down on the country’s rampant illegal logging. The second forest guard told Mongabay that most of the owners of the sawmills had no permit to work in the reserve, but continued to log its forests. He said that a concession once leased by the company had since been invaded by illegal loggers, including former company staff. As a consequence, log production rose 65 percent in 1984-87, and export revenues rose 665 percent in 1983-88. Written by Senyo Kofi Agbleze & Freda Yamorti Gbande, TFF Ambassadors from Ghana. “FoE then collaborate[s] with the Forestry Commission for verification of the alerts and then take action.”. Ultimately, deforestation in Ghana is due to demographic and economic pressures, policy and institutional lapses, increased infrastructural developments and technological advances. Image by Delphine Bruyere via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Ghana is still confronted with serious and complex environmental challenges, despite the various interventions by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the last 40 years. Ghana’s last remaining tracts of primary forest can only be found within areas granted official protection. Here, illegal logging is also underway. It was also to share and discuss outcomes of a … Ghana is, indeed, no exception to this state of affairs. He referred to one incident in which the Forestry Commission stopped buses loaded with illegal timber from a forest reserve and arrested the perpetrators. Between 1990 and 2000, Ghana lost an average of 135,000 hectares of forest per year; amounting to an average annual deforestation rate of … According to Abu-Juam, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is also engaging members of the public, particularly those living around the reserves, to fight illegal logging. He added that a special court had been established, with trained local forestry officials acting as prosecutors to deal with cases involving illegal operators in the reserves. The biggest impact has been in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana where cocoa production is estimated to have been responsible for about one quarter of historical deforestation in Cote d’Ivoire and nearly 15 per cent in the high-forest zone of Ghana. Human settlement in Tano-Offin has also contributed to the destruction of its forest. A stakeholders’ workshop to discuss measures to address deforestation and boost cocoa production in the Ahafo Region has been held at Goaso. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page. Some of these challenges are lack of proper waste management, deforestation, pollution, land or soil degradation, desertification and resource depletion among others. Bush fires, set to clear land and aided by the dry harmattan season from November to March, have consumed large swaths of forest. Devoid of large trees, while the roar of chainsaws is ever-present, operated with impunity to reserves throughout. 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