Establish a conflict management unit within Ghana’s Forestry Commission

Establish a conflict management unit within Ghana’s Forestry Commission

Ghana - 12 October, 2012

Conflicts over the use and management of forest and tree resources abound in Ghana. These have often led to loss of incomes, livelihoods and forests, and sometimes resulting in injuries and even deaths. But establishing a specialised unit within the Forestry Commission for forest conflict management could offer the necessary leverage for better managing them. This is according to Dr. Mercy Derkyi, a TBI Ghana supported PhD graduate of the University of Amsterdam.

Forest conflicts in Ghana’s high forest zone has been partly blamed for the failure of some interventions supported by government, civil society and development partners to yield the desired impact of promoting good forest governance and livelihood innovations. A critical review of the early interventions suggested that conflict management strategies and systems had not received sufficient consideration. Hence in 2008, TBI Ghana supported a PhD student, Mercy Derkyi, to examine and provide insight into constructive conflict management pathways capable of minimising conflicts and contributing to the strengthening of the ongoing forest governance process in Ghana. The study undertaken under the ‘Governance for sustainable forest-related livelihoods’ programme was carried out as a joint effort by Tropenbos International Ghana, the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) at the University of Amsterdam and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

In her PhD thesis, completed in September 2012, entitled 'Fighting over forest – Interactive governance of conflicts over forest and tree resources in Ghana's high forest zone’ – Derkyi noted that illicit forest activities especially illegal timber exploitation and chainsaw milling, excessive exploitation of non-timber forest products (NTFPs), illegal farming in forest reserves due to population increase and the need for fertile soils for crop cultivation play an important but not exclusive role in forest conflicts in Ghana.

She found that unresolved forest tenure issues in Ghana – some of which date back to colonial times – impede the proper implementation of national forest policy; and that hierarchical governance – a top-down style of state-citizen relationship – still prevails despite national policy initiatives which are intended to embrace more participatory approaches. The researcher bemoaned the lack of strict enforcement of legal sanctions and low fines for forest offences in Ghana. She therefore calls for more effective cooperation between the Forestry Commission, the Ghana Police Service and the Judicial Service to improve forest law enforcement. She also advocates a reform of the judiciary system in a way that recognises the importance of forest offences and argues that Ghana’s Forestry Commission should be handed a prosecution mandate in order to facilitate the adjudication of forest offences.

Derkyi makes a case for the integration of non-violent conflict management strategies into forest policy and management as a key to ensuring better forest governance. This requires the establishment of a specialised unit for forest conflict management within the Forestry Commission (FC) which could be integrated in the Legal Division of the FC. In addition, the conflict management capability of frontline staff such as forest guards, district managers and (where applicable) customer service officers should be enhanced, as well as those of community leaders and timber operators. Derkyi calls for the recognition and utilisation of the conflict management role of traditional authorities. She recommends the embracing of interactive forest governance principles as a new governance culture. However, she contends that the most important thing is the simple recognition among all forest actors that conflict management is a key building block of forest governance and effective forest management.