Presented by Albert Katako, Head of Programmes for CIVIC Response on Discussion Forum 9 at the Global Landscapes Forum Nairobi 2018, on 29-30 August in Nairobi, Kenya

1. Changing social arrangements that entrench marginalization │civicresponsegh.org
Albert Katako
Head of Programmes, Civic Response
Rights, Access and Values: Trees in
Shifting Economic & Political Context
New Insights from Sub Saharan Africa

2. Civic Response; Who we are
• Founded in 2003 in Accra Ghana in response to
poor natural resource governance challenges in
Ghana
• A leading natural resources environmental
governance and policy advocacy organization
• Working to entrench resource rights
• Undertakes activities to address policy needs of
communities depending on natural resource

3. Background
• Contribution of forests to lives and livelihoods of forest
dependent communities is significant
• In Ghana, forest resources belong to communities and
individuals
• Various governments since independence enacted various
legislations which made the ownership rights of communities
redundant
• Government took over management rights, control and user
rights on behalf of communities but with no accountability
mechanisms to communities.
• Communities and farmers who have nurtured and maintained
timber trees were excluded from benefit sharing schemes.

4. Rapid Loss of forest cover
• Diminished interest of communities in forest protection
• Deliberate destruction of timber trees by farmer is a better option than
logging by timber companies and none payment of compensations for
destroyed crops
• A farmer cuts down a timber tree, burn it, no crime committed; the moment
he tries to get financial benefit from it, its criminal
• Forest clearance became the main form of security of land tenure for
farmers
• Reduction of forest cover from 8.2m ha to about 1.5m ha < a century
• 1990 to 2000 experienced the worst forms of forest cover loss
• Drivers of deforestation: agricultural expansion, illegal logging, forest
conversion into oil palm, rubber, cocoa & surface mining

5. Pamu Berekum forest reserve
•1990 2000
Non Forest Cover
Forest Cover

6. Loss of natural forest
farmingfarmingnatural forest

7. Consequences
• Loss of biodiversity
• Timber industries running out of
resources
• Ghana now a net emitter of green
house gases

8. Policy acknowledgements and
reforms
• 2007 - 2009 : VPA : VPA implementation strategy acknowledged lack of tree
tenure = loss of forest cover and illegal logging: you cant protect something you
don’t own or benefit from
• VPA seen as a turning point to address tree tenure – hand over un protected
areas back to communities to manage
• 2010 : REDD+ Implementation Strategy made similar recommendations
• 2012 FWP: Policy strategy and direction in the long term is to: “enact legislations
to enable communities and individuals to benefit from tree on their farms and
fallow lands, provide off-reserve tree tenure security, authority to legally dispose
off resources and allocate greater proportions of benefits accruing from resource
management to community members individually or collectively” or put simply;
allow farmers / communities to own, control, use and manage timber trees in the
off-reserve areas
• General acceptance that tree tenure needs to be reviewed to provide incentives
to farmers = improve forest cover

9. Tree Tenure Reform process so far
• 2016, Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR)
started processes to implement the tree tenure policy
reform based on the 2012 FWP provisions
• 1962 Concession Acts became an obstacle – vested
nurtured trees / naturally occurring trees in the President
• MLNR adopted a short term strategy to deliver significant
financial benefits from timber trees on farm to farmers =
60% of timber rights fees when logged.
• Additional source of financial benefits is stumpage fees
MLNR proposed 60% to farmers, 40% to FC
• Currently under discussions

10. Planted Trees Registration exercise
• 2002: law passed guaranteeing100% tree ownership to planters. This
motivated planters to plant trees but the contention has been on
nurtured trees.
• Forestry Commission asked tree planters to register planted trees with
them as evidence that timber coming from planted trees are not stolen
from forest reserves
• Recent pilots of registration of planted trees by CSOs and UNDP shows
its expensive and particularly laborious to take GPS coordinates of
every single planted tree
• Considering the extent of loss of forest cover in the off-reserve areas;
the MLNR is of the opinion that there would be very few naturally
occurring timber trees in the off reserve areas hence naturally occurring
timber trees in the off reserve areas should be treated as planted trees
• CSOs are proposing that rather than asking farmers to register trees on
farm, farmers should be present a mapping of their farms and every tree
on the farm considered as planted

11. Changing social arrangements that entrench marginalization │civicresponsegh.org
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