Ghana: Forestry Sector Policy Review Underway

At a recent workshop in Accra, about 50 representatives of CSOs including Environmental Protection Association of Ghana, Institute of Cultural Affairs, Religious Bodies Network on Climate Change and Tropenbos International Ghana from across the country, deliberated on initiatives including the Ghana-EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), Non-Legally Binding Instruments (NLBI), Forest Investment Programme (FIP), National Forest Plantation Development Programme, REDD Financing and Carbon Trading, and the on-going policy reform. The workshop was facilitated by Civic Response, an Accra based civil society organisation.

The consensus of the CSOs was that all of the initiatives were laudable in terms of their overall goals and objectives, which include sustainable forest management, establishing the legality of the country’s forest products, improvement of the livelihoods of forest fringe communities, equitable sharing of benefits, poverty alleviation, and creation of forest based employment avenues such as tree planting and protection of boundaries.

The participants were of the view that the Forestry Commission (FC), its regional and district offices were not doing enough to educate local communities on the new initiatives.

They maintained that all stakeholders particularly local community members needed to be abreast of all of these initiatives, so that they could make informed proposals and decisions.

CSOs have been educating forest fringe communities on some of these initiatives, but members believed that the onus was on the FC to spearhead such education, as spelt out in the Forestry Commission Service Charter.

The Charter mandates the Commission to educate the public and forest fringe communities on forestry issues among other things.

They were also concerned about how local communities would fare following the implementation of these initiatives. The participants wondered whether community members would still have free access to the forests.

They contended that if access would be denied them, then efforts should be made to adequately compensate them.

The participants appreciated the on-going policy reform to review specific polices including the 1994 Forest and Wildlife Policy, saying there are lots of issues to be considered for incorporation in the new document.

They declared that their interest as CSOs was to ensure that the final product addresses issues such as local community rights of access and equitable benefits sharing.

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