Stakeholders in the forestry sector

Kotey et al (1998:40) refer to stakeholders as “a number of persons and institutions that have a statutory, customary or moral right to use or benefit from the forest, and the power - legal, traditional or moral - to control or regulate conduct and behaviour which has an effect on the

forest, and others whose acts or omissions impact on the forest or whose livelihood or well-being is affected by the forest”.

In other words, state and non-state establishments, actors, affiliations that shape decision-making bordering on the distribution, conservation, coordination, control and usage of forest resources. Stakeholders in Ghana’s forestry sector include the state and its agencies such as the Ministry of Lands, Forestry and Mines (MLFM), Forestry Commission (FC), forest fringe communities, farmers, stool landowners and the timber industry. Other Indirect stakeholders include NGOs, political parties, journalists, students, civil society groups and the labour movement. ²⁸

4.7.1 Central Government

European colonialists in Ghana reserved vast areas of forestland from local populations to central government (Amanor, 1999; Matose 2006). This shift in control empowered governments in particularly developing countries to design legislative tools that will regulate the use and management of forest resources. Variuos ministries, agencies and departments are set up by government to perform this function.

4.7.2 Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources

The Ministry is responsible for making and coordinating all forestry and land policy. Kotey et al (1998) noted that in recent years it has taken on a leading role in the forest policy field and has been the motivating force behind recent policy initiatives. The ministry is responsible for directing and coordinating the activities of all agencies operating under it. These include the Forestry Department, the Game and Wildlife Department, the Forest Products Inspection Bureau, the Administrator of Stool Lands, the Timber Export Development Board as well as donor funding and projects within the sector.

4.7.3 The Forestry Commission (FC)

This body was set up (re-established) under the Forestry Commission Act 1999 (Act 571).²⁹ (Ghana Government website, accessed 20/10/2014). It is a subdivision of the Ministry of

28 Kotey et al (1998).

Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR). This is the statutory body responsible for managing and ensuring forest resources in the country. There are three divisions within the FC: the Forest Services Division (FSD), the Wildlife Division (WD) and the Timber Industry Development Division (TIDD), which is further divided into The Wood Industries Training Centre and the Resource Management Support Centre.

4.7.4 District Assemblies

Since 1988, district assemblies have been the engine on which local governments run (Kotey et al 1998). The Local Government Act³⁰ regulates them. Currently a total of 216 district assemblies are in the country.³¹They are made up of elected representatives from all towns and villages in each district. Their mandate includes passing of by-laws and creating development programmes, intervening in environmental and forestry issues. Most District assemblies have prevented timber companies from exploiting off-reserve forests as well as keep an eye on trucks and machinery that ply the area. They are also involved in implementing interim measures to control timber exploitation in off-reserve areas (Oppon 2004)

4.7.5 Traditional Councils

The Traditional system or authority of governance is a very important institution in Ghanaian society. A number of customary land owners (stools, clans, families, tindanas and tendamba) make up the council. In the South-western part of the country the “Odikro” (Paramount chief) ³² is the leader of the council. Legislative and customary laws oblige the stool landowners and government the right of management and ownership rights respectively, but consecutive legislation has excluded traditional authorities with little decision making powers regarding forest management in spite of their legal role as owners. Current policy is however trying to rectify this trend (Kotey et al 1998).

30 Act 1993(Article 462)

31 http://www.ghanadistricts.gov.gh/news/?read=46228. Accessed 17/10/2014.

32 The “Odikro” or Paramount Chief is the political head of a town

4.7.6 Forest dependent /Fringe Communities

As long as history goes, it has been established that the indigenous or pre-colonial African population has always had a hand in managing and preserving of natural resources found in our forests³³.

While acknowledging the roles that central governments have played in the past as forest conservators (mainly through the creation of reserves), there is growing recognition that government agencies have not ultimately proved the most effective agents for preserving forests. Even where forest entities have successfully managed the forests for conservation purposes, they have not always done so in a participatory manner (Kotey et al., 1998). In Ghana, as well as many developing countries, crucial decisions pertaining to the use and management of forests have not always involved local communities. The main interests of colonial forest policies was on timber exploitation and export, as well as to meet the competing land and forest demands of farmers and loggers (Wiggins et al., 2004; Asante, 2005). Thus, despite the major role forests play in their lives, dependent/fringe communities were totally excluded from forest management activities.

Forest-dependent communities were therefore excluded from management activities of the forests despite the significant role forest plays in the livelihood of these communities. Today, government still largely controls forest management in the country, although forest dependent communities are also regarded as stakeholders (Eshun 2008).

State agencies take most important decisions without consulting communities, and discriminate against communities with respect to resource access (FERN 2006).

33 See Matose & Willy (1996), Fabricius (2004), cited in Alhassan 2010.

5 Theoretical framework

In this chapter, we give an overview of various theories and concepts related to the study.

These include the Sustainable Livelihood Framework, the concept of Sustainable Development, the concept of institutions, and the concept of benefit sharing. The livelihood framework will be used to show the relationship between assets owned by rural cocoa farmers, and how the use of those assets will improve or impede their livelihoods. Next, the concept of sustainable development will be used to demonstrate how forest resources can be managed in a sustainable manner, so that future generations can benefit from it. Using the concepts of assets and social relations under the framework, we will analyze the effects of a REDD+ compensation scheme on the livelihoods of local communities in our study area. This will lead to a discussion of how the expectations of local people with regards to REDD+ can be achieved in the face of seasonal vulnerabilities, climate change and the challenge of sustainable forest management (SFM). The concept o