RESEARCH NEEDS FOR SUSTAINABLE COCOA PRODUCTION IN GHANA

Community Resource Management Areas (CREMA) and Modified Taungya Systems (MTS) are arrangements the Government of Ghana is implementing to allow fringe communities to benefit from sustainable management of natural resources.

The CREMA concept was developed by the Wildlife Division (FC) in the 1990s and allows communities to manage natural resources outside protected areas. According to Ghana’s constitution, land ownership is vested in stools but the government has the right to the naturally occurring resources on the land. However, CREMA places this right with the communities, making them responsible for the management of their own natural resources. This is based on the notion that a degree of ownership will result in more sustainable management because these people can also reap the benefits of sustainable use of resources. The establishment of a CREMA is a long process of negotiations and surveys with the relevant stakeholders and decision making on the management structure and the demarcation of the area. A benefit sharing scheme is developed for both financial and non-financial aspects and the CREMA draws up its own constitution which needs to be recognized as district by-laws by the District Assembly. Since all these decisions and structures are developed by the communities, they should be based on the local values and needs (Asare, Kyei, & Mason, 2013). CREMAs have resulted in different benefits including increased knowledge of community members and reduced deforestation. However, there are also several challenges, for example with regards to land tenure and access to the benefits of commercial trees (Damnyag et al., 2013). Moreover, the process of establishing a CREMA is slow and costly and requires a lot of support (Bosu, 2012).

Another scheme developed by the Forestry Commission is the Modified Taungya System (MTS) which is used for establishment of tree plantations or forest restoration where communities can cultivate their staple crops in the initial stages of establishment of the plantation. When trees mature and the canopy closes, the production of food crops should move to another degraded area for a new cycle of establishment. MTS is considered a profitable venture for several stakeholders including the government and the farmers. However some challenges include clarity on the benefit sharing of timber sales and effective alternatives sources of income and or food for farmers on the short and medium term, when they can no longer grow crops in the MTS (Kalame et al., 2011).