1 Introduction
1.1
Ghana’s forest sector
Forests remain important in the socio-economic sectors of
Ghana. Locally, forests remain a sacred place of connection for communities for
spiritual and cultural purposes. Forests provide raw materials for building and
are an important source of food for forest fringe communities. It offers
employment, income and supports several hundreds of rural livelihoods. At the
national level, the forest sector is estimated to contribute 4% to the GDP. However,
Ghana’s forest cover has reduced from an estimated 8.6 million ha to 1.6
million ha since the turn of the century. The timber industry export provided
10% of foreign exchange for the country between 1990 and 2000 which declined to
8.1% in 2005 and to 1.3% in 2011. The forest sector provides direct employment
for more than 270,000 people (both formal and informal sectors) and livelihood
to around 650,000[1]
people (indirect employment/income). Chainsaw milling (CSM)’s contribution to
the domestic timber market is estimated at US $554 million (GHc 280 million)[2] while
the formal sector in terms of export of timber provides around US $180 million
(between 2009 and 2010)[3]. The EU
remains an important export destination of Ghana’s timber[4].
1.2
Forest Law Enforcement, Governance
and Trade (FLEGT)
In 2009 Ghana and the European Union ratified a Voluntary
Partnership Agreement (VPA) to regulate the trade in timber and timber products
within the framework of the Forest Law Enforcement and Governance, Trade
(FLEGT) Action Plan. On the demand side, significant progress has been made
with the coming into force of the EU’s Timber Regulation (EUTR) in March 2013,
which prohibits the import
of illegal timber and places a responsibility on importers to check their
suppliers to ensure that they
purchase legal timber. Penalties are determined by individual EU countries but
could be up to two years imprisonment or a 50,000 EURO fine[5]. Even though the responsibility of
proof of illegality rests with the importing companies in the EU, there is the risk
of blacklisting of exporting companies in Ghana when it is proven that their
timber is exploited in violation of the Ghanaian laws once the VPA comes into
force. Under the EUTR, importing companies have the responsibility to ensure
due diligence is undertaken on all timber products imported and demonstrate
measures to mitigate any risks involved with their trade. On the supply side,
the VPA is to ensure that a FLEGT licence covers consignment of shipment of
timber to the EU proving its legality with the country’s laws on forestry. As will
be shown in the subsequent paragraphs it is very likely that most of Ghana’s exported
timber does not currently meet the legality definition of the VPA because necessary
legal reforms in the sector has not yet been achieved. The VPA is also aimed at
assisting timber producing countries to improve governance in the forest sector
in return for guaranteed market access for timber into the EU. The Ghana VPA
includes a wide range of necessary policy and legal reforms that will promote transparency,
accountability and good governance[6]. Since
the VPA came into force in 2009, most activities have focused on how to put technical
specifications of the Legality Assurance System (LAS) in place and to pilot the
Wood Tracking System (WTS) which is part of the LAS to ensure traceability of
timber along the value chain from the forest of origin to the port of export. Since
the pilot system was completed in 2012, little progress has been made with
regards to scaling it up at the national level.
1.3
Governance reforms envisaged by
the VPA
The promised governance improvement integrated in the VPA
and towards improved transparency and accountability is not happening. The
fundamental challenges are deepening rather than abating. Ghana is moving at a
snail’s pace with the VPA implementation and this threatens the credibility of
the VPA process, the created momentum and its appropriateness to improve forest
governance. This paper highlights the persisting challenges in the forest sector
and explains why there is the need for CSOs to put pressure on government and
the EU to move forward on them or risk plunging the whole FLEGT VPA into a
credibility crisis. The paper further aims
to inform the general public on the remaining challenges in order to galvanise stakeholder
support to demand the necessary governance reform. The focus of this paper is on
the governance reform aspects of the VPA that is necessary to ensure
accountability, transparency and coordination of capacity for participation. It
will indicate the progress made since the VPA was ratified in 2009 and then conclude
by providing some recommendations on the way forward.
[2] GHc is Ghana
cedis (national currency for Ghana). Using an exchange
rate of GHc 1 to $ 1.98 at the time of writing the paper
[3] This data is sourced from the Ghana government’s Forest Investment Plan.
The Plan is the government’s proposal for funding from the Forest Investment
Program of the Climate Investment Fund run by World Bank (WB), African
Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)
[4] According to
the June 2013 edition of the TIDD of Forestry Commission’s report on the trade
and export performance of the industry, Europe emerged as the major destination
for Ghana’s wood products export during Jan-June 2013. Export to various
European countries in Jan- June 2013 amounted to Euro 29.76million (48.48%)
from a volume of about 56,700m3 (41.28%). Report available on http://www.fcghana.org/assets/file/Publications/Industry_Trade/Export_Reports/year%202013/June_2013.pdf
[5] Information is sourced from a recently published study of Global Witness
that alleges massive abuse of Ghana’s timber permits systems and alarms of
high-risk coming from Ghana. Available on http://www.globalwitness.org/ghanapermits
[6] Press release from the first (1st) Joint Monitoring and
Review Mechanism (JMRM) of the Ghana-EU VPA published on January 29, 2010.
Available at the Forestry Commission website: www.fcghana.org
No comments:
Post a Comment