An evaluation of community involvement in conservation policy and its effects on sustainability and livelihoods: a comparative study of Offinso and Atwima Districts of Ashanti Region

Forests play key roles in national and local economies. Ghana depends on her forest resources for foreign exchange through the export of timber. Forests also play significant roles socially and culturally for the forest fringe communities for sustainable livelihoods. Over the years however, there has been an increasing interest in these resources for production. This has resulted in the increasing deterioration of these resources. The situation engineered an overriding decision by the government to maintain the perpetual productivity of these resources by restricting the activities of the fringe communities who depend directly or indirectly on these resources. The reasons postulated to these were that the rural poor and small scale farmers who practiced shifting cultivation were the culprit of the deteriorating resources with little consideration being given to the pressures on these resources from the international community. Taking into consideration the deleterious effect human interventions had on conserved forest resources, policies were designed to bring the situation under control. This was seen in the 1994 policy which was a revised version of the 1948 forest policy. Stakeholders and other actors have however, been identified as holding the key to the sustainable conservation of these resources. Thus government policies on forest conservation have highlighted community participation. It is against this background that the study was designed to evaluate community involvement in policy using selected districts, so that based on the findings of the study recommendations could be made to address issues and also for policy review. The districts included the Atwima and Offinso, with the Ejisu-Juaben district being represented by Kubease. Using primary and secondary data collected from various sources including close observations the study came to a conclusion among others that: • Though community participation is being advocated, its implementation has been rather poor, with much disregard to the attendant needs of the fringe communities. • Government policy on forest conservation is plagued with some bottlenecks such as, weak implementation of policy instruments, financial constraints and inappropriate implementation strategies. These have contributed to the poor state of the resources in the districts surveyed. Local people around the forest have the potential to manage forest resources if given good conditions and the enabling environment to do so, such as being given adequate incentives and a listening ear to their concerns. • The study gave some recommendations towards addressing the issues of policy and community involvement as; • There should be consistent implementation, monitoring and review of the forest policy in operation, which should be done in close collaboration with all the policy formulation and implementing agencies most especially with the full participation of the local communities. • The provision of alternative livelihood sources for the fringe communities to reduce dependency on the forest resource. • Timber merchants should be, closely monitored and adequately involved in conservation. They, should be made responsible for their activities within the forest reserve and prevented from infringing on the rights of the community, such as their right of access to forest resources.

Source: KNUST