Journalists schooled on forest governance

A non-governmental organization has appealed to the media to increase reportage and discussion time on sustainable forest management and governance issues in the country.

They are to acquaint themselves with forest legal and policy framework and to demonstrate much understanding of the key principles and the emerging global trends of forest governance.

This came out when the Friends of the Earth-Ghana (FOE-Ghana), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), held a training workshop for 60 journalists selected from the Eastern, Western and the Ashanti regions at Dodowa.

The training workshop formed part of the NGO’s three-year project dubbed, “Enforcement and Governance for Sustainable Forest Management (CiSoPFLEG).”

The journalists were trained on the European Union (EU) Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) as well as the Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) and forest governance.

Nana Tawiah, a lawyer who took the journalists through legal architecture and emerging legal issues in the forest sector, also enlightened the participants on the various institutions in the sector and their functions to ensure good forest governance.

Dr Emmanuel Acheampong, a Senior Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) taught the media personnel some of the key principles and the emerging global trends of forest governance

Mrs. Ama Kudom - Agyemang, an environmental consultant, appealed to journalists to develop interest in reporting on issues that could promote sustainable development in the forestry sector to enable Ghana gain the expected revenue from timber.

Ghana signed the FLEGT and the VPA in 2009 but it is yet to issue its first FLEGT license which is expected to be in November.

The VPA is a tool being used by the EU to promote governance reforms in timber producing countries to ensure that timber products from such countries are obtained from legally recognized sources.

The FLEGT License will therefore give Ghanaian timber exporters easy access to the European market.