Chainsaw milling is the on-site conversion of logs into boards using chainsaws. Significant and increasing amounts of timber in the tropics for local markets are produced using this simple technology. In many local and indigenous forest dependent communities, chainsaw milling is an important source of income.

 

The strength of chainsaw milling is that it pairs low capital requirements with high labour input, which makes it a suitable technology for small entrepreneurs. This keeps the price of chainsaw lumber low and within the means of the poor. However, the high portability of chainsaws makes chainsaw milling difficult to control by forest authorities and prone to illegal activities. This leads to complaints and conflict with several other stakeholder groups like the Government, traditional sawmill owners, conservationists and other owners of trees and forest resources.

 

Tropenbos International (TBI) started the project “Developing alternatives for illegal chainsaw lumbering through multi-stakeholder dialogue in Ghana and Guyana” to address the negative impacts of chainsaw milling, while maintaining and enhancing its positive socio-economic effects for local and indigenous people.

 

The project will examine policy responses to chainsaw milling in Ghana and Guyana and across the world. Furthermore it will analyse the driving factors and impacts of chainsaw milling in both countries and determine the macro-economic, political, legal and socio-economic conditions that have fostered chainsaw milling.

Because chainsaw milling is surrounded with high level of conflict and distrust, multi-stakeholder dialogues will be started as a means to reduce conflict and generate solutions for chainsaw milling. These multi-stakeholder processes will make use of the generated knowledge on chainsaw milling and will provide for participatory analysis of the social, economic, and environmental costs and benefits of chainsaw milling, resulting in an shared action plan that addresses the negative aspects of chainsaw milling. This action plan will be piloted in eleven communities in Ghana and Guyana.

 

 

From 20-24 August 2007, delegations from Ghana and Guyana visited Wageningen for the inception meeting that was the start of the project. The project will run for five years. It allowed the partners to meet each other in person and agree on the implementation of the project. During this session, a landscape level approach and a sustainable livelihoods approach were adopted as the guiding principles for the implementation of this project.

 

The International Project Coordination Committee
of the project on Chainsaw Milling in Ghana and Guyana
.(Wageningen, The Netherlands, August 2007)

TBI will implement this project together with the following partners: Ghana: Forestry Commission (FC), Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG) Guyana: Forestry Training Centre Incorporated (FTCI), Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development (Iwokrama).

For more information, please contact Marieke Wit

Presentations on chainsaw milling in Ghana and Guyana:

• Chainsaw milling in Ghana (James Parker)
• Chainsaw milling in Guyana (Rohini Persaud Kerrett)