RESEARCH NEEDS FOR SUSTAINABLE COCOA PRODUCTION IN GHANA

Forest Encroachment

Broadly speaking, forests in Ghana can be divided into two categories: reserve and off-reserve forests. Off-reserve land includes private lands and covers around two-thirds of the total land area in Ghana (R.A. Asare, 2013). Forest reserves are supposed to be protected from destruction and degradation, whereas hardly any intact natural forest is left in the off-reserve areas. However, in reality illegal activities often take place in the forest reserves as well, such as agriculture, mining and logging (R. Asare, 2006). Moreover, during the establishment of these areas the existing farms in these areas were allowed to continue their practices as so-called admitted farms and limited agricultural activity in these areas is allowed through taungya systems (Agyarko, n.d.). The people living in the admitted settlements are depended on forest resources for their livelihoods and of course the communities have naturally expanded over the years, putting more pressure on the forest leading to forest destruction or severe degradation (Anon., personal communication).

In the early 1990s it was estimated that 50-70% of the protected areas in the high forest zone in Western Region had been illegally encroached (R. Asare, 2006). It appears that there have not been many assessments of the status of these reserves since then. IUCN Ghana has started recently to map the health of Ghana’s forest, including the reserves in Western Region and has published some preliminary data on its website (IUCN, 2014).