TBI Ghana pilots Wood Tracking System for the domestic market

This effort comes on the heel of Ghana committing not only to export legal lumber to the European Market under a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) but also to ensure that the domestic timber market is supplied with legal timber. However, currently about 84% of the domestic market supply is from illegal chainsaw milling. To satisfy the legality assurance criterion of the VPA, Ghana needs to address the trade in illegal chainsawn lumber.

With support from the EU, TBI Ghana has over the years, in collaboration with the Forestry Commission and the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, and through broad multi-stakeholder processes, supported the development of a new policy for supply of legal timber to the domestic market. The policy introduces a concept of artisanal milling that will supply the domestic market with legal timber. To guarantee legal production and trade of artisanal milled lumber a Wood Tracking System is necessary.

Under the FAO-supported project, TBI Ghana trained artisanal millers in pilot regions in business and technical skills and developed different models for producing legal lumber for the domestic market. The WTS is now being piloted with some artisanal mills in the Juaso and Goaso Forest Districts. A team of young officers are now in the field to monitor the process of producing and trading legal lumber, using the developed Wood Tracking System.