Woodworkers call for national afforestation strategy
The General Secretary of the Woodworkers Association of Ghana, Mr Abdallah Bin Abubakar, has warned that the local woodwork industry faces imminent collapse if a rigorously enforceable national afforestation strategy and a clear national definition of what constitutes legal timber are not established.
Mr Abubakar was speaking at a forum in Accra held recently for stakeholders in the timber and woodwork industry.
He said provisions governing the criteria for defining what constituted legal timber were scattered in different Acts, Legislative Instruments (L.Is) and other related documents, making it difficult for players in the timber industry to comply.
“Currently there are 23 Acts and 26 LIs that regulate the forestry sector. This situation is making it nearly impossible for operators in the timber industry to comply with the processes for harvesting timber legally as a result of cumbersome procedures and bureaucratic and multiple institutions involved,” he said.
He said the multiplicity of the legislation in the forestry sector, coupled with the inconsistencies in the nature and scope of these pieces of legislation, had failed to inspire the development of any pragmatic conservation and afforestation policy.
“It is in the light of the current situation that the WAG sought the assistance of the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge Fund to carry out an advocacy action for the formulation of a pragmatic policy intervention that will ensure the sustainable utilisation of Ghana's forestry resources through the institutionalisation of stakeholder and local community participation,” he said.
Mr Abubakar disclosed that despite the government’s best efforts at halting illegal timber logging and trade, the practice was still going on unabated.
“The level of illegality with regards to access to timber is quite high in Ghana. It is reported that illegal activities collectively account for about 2.6 million cubic metres of timber harvested annually. The ongoing deforestation and degradation of tropical forests through illegal logging represents a threat to Ghana’s goal of promoting sustainable forest management and sustainable livelihoods for forest-dependent communities and the woodwork industry in the country,” he stated.
He warned that any intervention designed to prevent the timber and woodworker industry which failed to put in mechanisms to ensure sustainable supply through afforestation initiatives was doomed to fail.
