To celebrate the International Year of Forests in Ghana, TBI Ghana in partnership with the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the Forestry Commission is organising a symposium under the theme: “Halting deforestation and forest degradation in Ghana – the missing link’. This high-level debate is aimed at diagnosing the failure of sustainable forest management in Ghana and jointly discussing strategies to address it.
Over the years, Ghana’s forest sector has experienced many interventions aimed at addressing the fundamental challenges to implementing sustainable forest management.
In spite of all these interventions, deforestation and forest degradation continue to soar: Ghana has the highest rate of deforestation (2.19 percent) in the world, apart from Togo and Nigeria. With the annual forest loss of 65,000 ha, Ghana’s forest cover has reduced from 8.2 million ha in the beginning of last century to 1.6 million now. Why did these interventions fail and what can be done about this? Key forest actors drawn from policy, research, academia, practitioners, civil society, and forest industry as well as development partners are expected to share insights on the issue and develop strategies to address it so that future generations can also benefit from the forest.
In relation to the theme, the following issues shall be explored:
- Inventory of the policy changes/reforms, donor support and Ghana’s subscription to numerous international treaties and programmes, and how these have been implemented.
- The technical prescriptions that have been tried, the contribution of research and capacity built within the sector.
- Community participation in sustainable forest management.
- The role of civil society and the quest for good governance.
