Wood tracking system seminar held in Kumasi
A project inception meeting has been held to speed up government’s processes of rolling out the wood tracking system (WTS).
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This is part of efforts by the Forestry Commission to ensure that Ghana participates in the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) to issue a Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) licence possibly by next year.
Currently, the implementation of EU-VPA is on course and Ghana is ready to issue a FLEGT licence, hence the need to improve on the operations of timber-producing companies in the country.
The meeting, organised by the Timber Validation Department (TVD) of the Forestry Commission and sponsored by the EU-FAO-FLEGT of the United Nations (UN), sought to draw stakeholders in the forest supply chain, especially the timber companies.
The Manager for Verification at the Commission, Dr Richard Gyimah, who took the participants through the meeting, said the project was intended to provide technical and financial support to strengthen capacity in the Ghana Commission and timber industry staff on chain of custody systems in the different types of mills in Ghana in line with the Ghana legality assurance system.
He said the project, which began in November 2014 and was expected to end in April 2015, also sought to produce standardised chain of custody procedures for adoption by different timber companies in line with the wood tracking system established for the Ghana legality assurance system.
He added that there was the need to ensure that three large-scale operators, five medium-scale and five small-scale operators were trained in chain custody procedures and applied the procedures.
He, however, called on the general public to support the project.
