Stop illegal export of lumber— Security agencies urged

Security agencies in the Upper East Region have been urged to collaborate to help clamp down on the channelling of lumber and other timber products through unapproved routes into neighbouring countries.

Such a measure will help check the evasion of taxes and revenue losses to the country, as well as help bring sanity into the Overland Timber Trade.

Workshop

The Programme Director of Tropenbos Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in forestry research, Mr Samuel Kwabena Nketiah, made the call in a day's training workshop on guidelines for Overland Timber Trade at Bolgatanga.

It was attended by personnel from the Ghana Police Service, the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Timber Industry Development Division of the Forestry Commission (FC), timber traders on the domestic market, as well as overland exporters and importers.

According to Mr Nketiah, his outfit had put together a document titled "Guidelines for Overland Timber Trade" to serve as a working manual for all stakeholders in the Overland Timber Trade sector.

He explained that the document was developed and being implemented by his outfit with funding from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) under a project dubbed "Strengthening Regulatory Mechanisms on Overland Timber Trade for enhanced Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) and Voluntary Partnership Agreement implementation".

Chainsaw lumbering

Mr Nketiah observed that there was a thin line between the domestic timber market and overland timber trade, pointing out that "some of our neighbours have very little tree resources compared to Ghana but we needed to put in place some guidelines to export timber legally.”

He further stated that efforts were being made to discourage illegal chainsaw lumbering.

The Timber Grading and Inspections Manager, FC, Mr Collins Faakye, noted that with time, it would be very unattractive for individuals to deal in chainsaw lumbering.

He indicated that owing to the efforts made to clamp down on illegal chainsaw lumbering; about 38 per cent of sawn timber was being put on the local market, which was not the case in the past.

"We are putting more timber on the local market now because things are changing; timber for the domestic market to some extent is available now," he explained.

Background

Ghana and many other countries identify illegal logging and trade in associated products as a significant challenge to sustainable forest management, which threatens sustainable development goals.

The FELGT initiative launched by the European Union (EU) in 2003 has, therefore, gained currency across many tropical timber producing and consuming countries.

Ghana subscribed to the principles and aspirations of the initiative and signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement with the EU in 2009, as the underlying concept of FLEGT tend to be mutually supportive to and reinforce in Ghana's Forest and Wildlife policy and related forest sector strategies.