In Ghana people have exclusive rights and access to trees they have planted, but not trees naturally occurring on farms that have been nurtured, maintained and protected by farmers. Ghana recently reviewed the benefit-sharing system in off-reserve areas and granted higher benefits from timber revenues to non-state institutional stakeholders, but farmers were left out. In addition, rural people close to the resource are denied the opportunity to use tree management as a legitimate livelihood strategy. Farmers contest this situation by killing trees and conniving with illegal chainsaw operators to harvest and process trees on their farms as this gives them some direct benefits. This situation is partly responsible for the rapid depletion of Ghana's timber resources.

The need for a more equitable benefit-sharing system that recognizes rural people in general and farmers in particular is becoming increasingly apparent. However, reliable information to feed a more equitable or acceptable benefit sharing system in off-reserve areas is lacking.

This project seeks to make a contribution towards addressing the situation by analysing stakeholders' rights and roles in the management of timber trees in areas outside forest reserves. The outcome of this analysis will provide an objective basis for negotiating a more equitable benefit-sharing scheme that can help improve the livelihoods of farmers and other community-based stakeholders.

Objective
To generate information on the roles and rights of stakeholders in the management of timber resources in areas outside forest reserves to serve as basis for a more equitable sharing of timber revenue.

Duration
30 months

Expected outputs
Knowledge

• Information on various stakeholders' roles/input and rights in off-reserve tree management
• Scenarios of farmer involvement in timber tree management (management intensity of cropping systems)
• Analysis of stakeholder perceptions of farmer inputs in tree management

Human/institutional capacity

• A researcher trained in forest management, governance and socioeconomic studies at the post-graduate level (MSc)