Ghana likely to lose forest cover under 20 years

Ghana is likely to lose its forest cover in less than 20 years if the rate of deforestation, estimated to be 65,000 hectares per annum persists, latest information from the Ministry of Lands and Forestry has indicated.

Ghana's total forest cover, which stood at 8.2 million hectares (34% of the total land area) at the turn of the last century has decreased to 1.6million hectares.

Disclosing this in an interview with The Chronicle, the Technical Director of the ministry of lands and forestry, Mr. Fredua Agyeman, said currently over 80% of the total land area, which was originally covered with humid tropical forests has been degraded.

He said the degraded forests and dwindling timber resources have been noted as the key problems.

He said the existing government plantations of 19,000 hectares are capable of supplying timber for only four years, while the private plantations of 18, 000 hectares can supply for three years.

Mr. Agyeman said the efficiency of the timber industry, which has an installed capacity of 5.7 million cubic metres, has dropped from almost 70% in the 1970's to less than 40% due to outdated equipment.

According to him, as a result of that situation, foreign exchange earnings from the timber dropped from over $250 million in the 1980s to less than $170million now.

He said a national forestry plantation development programme would be implemented with the objective of restoring forest cover of degraded areas and addressing the wood deficit.

The target of the programme is 30,00 hectares for this year and 40,000hectares 2004 and 80,000 hectares from 2005-2008.

He said the government has adopted the promotion of cultivation and utilization of bamboo and rattans as supplement to the government's forest plantation development initiative. For this a bamboo and rattan secretariat has been established with a Chinese grant of $1,493,055 to implement the programme.

The programme aims to establish 100,000 hectares of bamboo and rattan plantation over a five-year period.

He said the ministry has increased stumpage fees by 100% to be implemented over a period pf nine months in order to increase revenue and address the problem of under pricing of forestry resources. Revenue generation is expected to increase by $27.16million for the first year and hit a target of about $10 million annually thereafter.