TITLE:
Perceived Injustices in Forest Policy Interventions are Causes of Forest Resources Degradation and Loss in Ghana: A Review
AUTHORS:
Richard Kyere-Boateng, Michal V. Marek, Mikuláš Huba, Tatiana Kluvankova
KEYWORDS:
Ghana, Forest Policy Intervention, Deforestation and Biodiversity Degradation, Climate Mitigation, Sustainability
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Forestry,
Vol.11 No.3,
June
7,
2021
ABSTRACT: Forests
provide diverse co-benefits, including livelihoods enhancement, poverty
alleviation, and biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services such as
climate mitigation. Consequently, Ghana has embraced several global, regional,
national, and local forest policy interventions to safeguard its forest
resources’ sustainable management. However, the forest policy interventions
have not adequately addressed the co-benefits issues of forest resources
leading to several forest illegalities that drive forest resources degradation
and loss. These forest policies and interventions on the ground primarily
favour carbon stocks enhancement and sequestration activities for carbon
mitigation purposes compared to the benefits, access and rights that
forest-dependent people and communities are supposed to derive from forest
resources. These perceived injustices in the access and distribution of forest
resources have culminated into all forms of forest illegalities driving Ghana’s
forest resources into massive degradation and loss. Currently, Ghana is
experiencing a 2% rate of annual deforestation and forest degradation, which
translates into approximately 135,000 ha/year of forest cover loss due to anthropogenic causes. Our review is based
on relevant and critical forest documents, and scientific peer-reviewed papers
on Ghana’s forest policy interventions and dynamics recently published. The
information gathered enabled us to highlight the perceived injustices in the
forest policy interventions and their effects on forest resources. Unjust
forest resources sharing and distribution are critical drivers of forest
resources degradation and loss. We thus offer lessons for remedying the unfair
distribution and injustices to promote equitable forest resources rights and
benefit access to local forest-dependent people. It is expected that this
review will offer and assist forest policy, intervention spatial and other
planners and designers to find a possible way forward to avoid nature
degradation, including biodiversity loss, to resolve perceived injustices in
the forestry sector, to use adequate all ecosystem services provided by forests
as well as to promote local livelihood and sustainability.