|
Ghana Forestry
![[JPEG]](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/jpeg.gif)
Felling timber. Forestry is one of Ghana's major
industries and sources of exports.
Courtesy Embassy of Ghana, Washington
Forests cover about one-third of Ghana's total area, with
commercial forestry concentrated in the southern parts of the
country. This sector accounted for 4.2 percent of GDP in 1990;
timber was the country's third largest foreign exchange earner.
Since 1983 forestry has benefited from more than US$120 million in
aid and commercial credits and has undergone substantial changes,
resulting in doubled earnings between 1985 and 1990. In 1993 timber
and wood products earnings totalled US$140 million against a
targeted level of US$130 million. Between January and November
1994, exports amounted to 919,000 tons and earned US$212 million.
Until the 1980s, forestry production suffered because of the
overvalued cedi and deterioration of the transportation
infrastructure. Log production declined by 66 percent during 1970-
81 and sawed timber by 47 percent. Exports fell from US$130 million
in 1973 to US$15 million in 1983, and four nationalized firms went
bankrupt during that period.
The forestry sector was given a large boost in 1986, mainly
because of the World Bank's US$24 million timber rehabilitation
credit, which financed imports of logging equipment. As a
consequence, log production rose 65 percent in 1984-87, and export
revenues rose 665 percent in 1983-88. Furthermore, the old Ghana
Timber Marketing Board was disbanded and replaced by two bodies,
the Timber Export Development Board--responsible for marketing and
pricing, and the Forest Products Inspection Bureau--responsible for
monitoring contracts, maintaining quality standards, grading
products, and acting as a watchdog for illegal transactions. Some
of the external financing underwrote these institutional changes,
while much of the rest financed forestry management and research as
well as equipment for logging, saw milling, and manufacturing.
The sector, however, faced several problems. The most important
was severe deforestation. A century ago, Ghana's tropical hardwood
forest extended from about the middle of the country southward to
the sea. Moreover, nearly half the country was covered with
forests, which included 680 species of trees and several varieties
of mahoganies. Most of this wood has been cut. By the early 1990s,
only about one-third of the country was still forested, and not all
of this was of commercial value. This situation has forced the
government to make difficult choices between desperately needed
hard currency earnings and conservation. The Forest Resource
Management Project, part of the ERP, was initiated in 1988, and in
1989 the government banned log exports of eighteen species. The
government later extended the list and imposed high duties on other
species, planning to phase out log and air-dried timber exports
altogether by 1994.
Instead, the government hoped to increase sales of wood
products to replace earnings from logs. Government figures showed
that one cubic meter of lumber and plywood was worth more than
twice as much as the same amount of logs; veneers earned five times
as much; and other products, such as furniture and floorings,
earned six times the price of an equivalent volume of logs.
Improvements in the processing sector caused wood products
(excluding lumber) to rise to about 20 percent of export earnings
in 1991, accounting for 6.9 percent of volume exports. By
comparison, wood products represented 11 percent of earnings and
5.5 percent of volume in 1985. The fall in the proportion of volume
sales accounted for by logs was accompanied by a dramatic fall in
their share in earnings, from 50-60 percent in the mid-1980s to 23
percent in 1990.
By the early 1990s, there were approximately 220 lumber
processors in Ghana, but the industry operated under several
constraints. Most overseas demand is for kiln-dried products, and
Ghanaian manufacturers lack sufficient kilns to meet that demand.
The cheap air-dried processing method is not satisfactory because
air-dried wood tends to destabilize over time. Foreign investment
incentives are not so attractive in this sector as in others, for
example, mining. Furthermore, infrastructure in the Western Region
where lumber processing is located continues to be relatively
neglected compared with mining and cocoa production regions. Other
difficulties include lack of expertise at technological and
managerial levels. Scandals have been reported in Ghana's forestry
industry since 1986, and they erupted again in early 1992. The most
notable case involved African Timber and Plywood, once Ghana's
largest exporter of round logs. In the mid-1980s, the government
embarked on a US$36 million rehabilitation project to boost the
company's production. In 1992 as much as US$2.3 million was alleged
to have been siphoned off from the project through various
malpractices, and a number of officials were arrested. Furthermore,
the environmental group, Friends of the Earth, alleged that there
had been additional thefts by numerous foreign companies totaling
almost US$50 million in hard currency during the 1980s. In 1992 the
government began investigating the activities of hundreds of
companies, both foreign and local, that were alleged to have
entered into a range of illegal dealings including smuggling,
fraudulent invoicing, violation of local currency regulations,
corruption, bribery, and nonpayment of royalties. The corruption is
so wide spread, however, that it is unlikely that the Ghanaian
authorities will stop timber-related crimes anytime soon.
Data as of November 1994
|
![[JPEG]](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/ghana/gh03_07a.jpg)
