Ghana has entered into a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union to supply only legal wood products to the European Union market and to the domestic market. A crucial success factor of the implementation of the agreement is a chain of custody system that makes it possible to trace any wood product on the market to its source in the forest. Serious efforts are on-going to design a chain of custody system for wood products from conventional producers.

Supply of legal timber to the domestic market, however, has been very challenging. The bulk of the supply has been from chainsaw milling which has been banned since 1998. In place of the banned chainsaw milling, Ghana has proposed the concept of artisanal milling to supply legal timber to the domestic market. Different models (options) of the artisanal milling concept are being considered but it is not clear how the different models will lend themselves to a chain of custody system which could aid strict monitoring and enforcement of legality.

This document is a response to this need. It outlines how forestry and private operators (loggers/millers/wood processors) will document and keep track of the flow of wood through the various stages of the domestic timber supply chain. Besides the supply chain options, the document also describes procedures and work instructions that may be put in place to ensure that wood products can be traced throughout the supply chain.