Plantation Forest Management among Local Farmers in Offinso North District of Ghana

Abstract

Deforestation has been on the rise from the world’s tropical forest since the late 20th century. Africa has reportedly lost more than 19 million ha of its original forest. The government of Ghana in the 20th century, got alarmed with the accelerating rate of degradation, its effect on the environment, and the failure of centralized forest management system. This led to the introduction of forest decentralization which brought forth local peoples’ participation in the restoration of the lost forest. Plantation forest unlike the Modified Taungya System has not been thoroughly explored in the Ghanaian literature, hence the justification for this study. This study is based on local farmers in the Offinso area in Ghana who are into reforestation and their contribution to increase in forested land cover in the country. The study adopted a mixed method approach to select 135 local farmers for the study. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic discussions. The study revealed that farmers into forest plantation farming benefit from their activities, and that the economic benefit of wood has helped in increasing the forest cover of the area through afforestation.