Ghana’s domestic lumber market gets support to comply with legal system

Small and medium scale forest enterprises are receiving support to comply with the Timber Legality Assurance System (LAS) of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) signed between Ghana and the European Union.

The local organizations will be empowered to engage in policy advocacy on the domestic timber market reform in Ghana as enshrined in the Agreement.

The LAS is to monitor, control and verify management and use of Ghana’s forest resources to ensure only legal products are produced, sold and exported from Ghana.

Tropenbos International (TBI) Ghana is implementing the two year project – it took off in December 2013 with a €450,000 funding from the EU.

 

“Ghana in signing unto the VPA also decided that the domestic market should be part of the voluntary agreement because the domestic market has been serviced mainly by lumber from chainsaw and chain-sawing has been banned in Ghana,” noted Samuel Nketiah, Programme Director at TBI.

He says the intermediaries will be supported with information and guidance to comply with the LAS. Target groups include wood carvers, carpenters, millers, artisans and other trade associations as agents of change.

“Ghana considering that the bulk of the domestic market is supplied by the illegal materials, we thought that unless we address the domestic market, there will be no point in just addressing the export trade,” said Mr. Nketiah.

The Domestic Lumber Traders Association of Ghana has lauded the project as a catalyst to increase engagements on wood local supplies.

“Most of the talks about the VPA was done at the formal level and the informal sector is the domestic market; so this programme is very important so far as supply of lumber to the local market is concerned…. There must be information and guidance about how TLAS itself,” stated Kofi Afreh Boakye, a leader of the Association.

Ghana, in November 2009, became the first country to sign and ratify the VPA with the EU on legal timber exports, including the domestic market.

Concerned about illegal mining, the Agreement is being developed to implement the EU’s Action Plan for Forest law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) – aimed at facilitating trade in legal timber and improved forest governance.

Tropenbos Ghana, in collaboration with the Forestry Commission, has the ultimate goal to minimize the wanton destruction of the forests and to secure forest dependent livelihoods, particularly for local communities.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh