“I am relieved to have a license, I will not fear
working on my mill any longer and I will have access to legal timber,” he exclaimed.
The Timber Industry Development Division (TIDD) of the
Forestry Commission (FC) issued the license under the EU Chainsaw Project being
implemented by Tropenbos International (TBI) Ghana and its partners.
This forms part of government strategy to promote the
sustainable use of forest resources under the Voluntary Partnership Agreement
(VPA) by supplying the domestic market with legal timber in order to curb rapid
deforestation.
The issuance of the license is a landmark victory in
the country’s efforts to quell illegal felling of trees and chainsaw milling
which is associated with a high percentage of wood waste.
“I now have the courage to approach any member of the
Ghana Timber Association (GTA) for wood to carry out my job,” said Mr. Agyenim,
who manages RABMILL Enterprise located in the Goaso Forest District of the Brong
Ahafo Region.
He has incorporated eight other millers into his
business, who would soon be issued with certificates whilst machinery for his
work has already been inspected by forestry officials.
Like all other millers in Ghana, Mr. Agyenim who
describes himself as a ‘Saw Doctor”, or a professional miller, started his
trade as a chainsaw miller in 1991 but was soon put off by the huge wastage
associated with chainsaw milling which underutilised large parts of the tree and
decided to develop his own machine.
“I realised even before chainsaw milling was banned in
Ghana in 1998 that if I did not change to a more efficient system, I would be
doomed. So, in 2008, I developed my own machine, the RABMILL (Richard Agyenim
Boateng Mill), which was named after me and proved to be high yielding, with a
67 percent recovery rate as compared to 32 percent from the chainsaw,” he
stated.
Mr. Agyenim later invented a second mill, the Mobile
Dimension, which also has a 50 percent recovery rate. Other millers, who were
impressed with the efficiency of his machines, approached him and he made six
Mobile Dimension mills and two RABMILLS for them.
He has advised other millers to “stop using chainsaws
and wasting our trees; we have to manage our forests well because our trees can
get finished and we would have nothing to live on or bequeath to our children.”
A study conducted by the Forestry Commission (FC) in
2011 puts Ghana’s deforestation rate at a staggering 45,000 hectares per annum
in the Savannah Zone and 20,000 hectares per annum in the forest Zone.
Artisanal milling was endorsed as the best alternative
to chainsaw milling in Ghana after several consultations with various
stakeholders in the forestry industry under an EU project that sought to identify
the best way to provide the domestic market with legal timber.
Finding the means for such an endeavour is crucial to
the promotion of sustainable forestry development if one considers the fact
that a whopping 80 percent of timber supplied on the country’s domestic market
can still be traced to illegal chainsaw milling.
Mr. Agyenim recalled that at Jamasi in the Ashanti
Region where he grew up, there used to be a scarp that was forested but is now
grassland because all the trees have been felled.
He noted the constitution governing the activities of
artisanal millers demands that they establish tree plantations and he has plans
to start one soon.
The artisanal miller has called on his fellow millers
to endeavour to pay taxes levied on their trade, saying there was the need to
eschew corruption from all levels of stakeholders involved in the forestry
industry in order to make sustainable forestry development a reality. 
No comments:
Post a Comment