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Forestry Commission admits failure in managing
remaining forests
Accra, Sept. 8, Ghanadot/GNA - Professor
Nii Ashie Kotey, Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission
(FC), on Saturday admitted that the Commission had failed to
manage Ghana's remaining forests the way they should have.
This, he noted, was due to numerous challenges facing staff,
including the lack of tools for effective work, such as
vehicles, bicycles, rain boots and cutlasses among others.
"Without the right tools we cannot work effectively," Prof
Kotey told the Minister for Lands, Forestry and Mines, Madam
Esther Obeng Dappah, during a familiarization tour of the
Commission's offices at Achimota.
The tour of the FC, being Madam Dappah's first since her
assumption of office was to enable her to interact with the
staff and acquaint herself with the institutions under the
FC including the Forest Services Division, the Wildlife
Division and the Timber Industry Development Division.
The core function of the FC is to manage Ghana's forest
resources, which at the turn of the century was about eight
million hectares, but as at year 2000, the remaining forest
cover was estimated to be about 1.634 hectares, made up
mainly of forest reserves.
Prof Kotey said the lack of tools had come about due to the
dwindling nature of the FC's revenue base.
"There are a lot of illegal activities in this sector,
depriving the FC of its internally generated fund," he said.
Prof Kotey said the major challenge to the FC was how to
develop the national parks into major eco-tourism sectors
that would provide the FC with a sound revenue base, adding
that there were on-going negotiations for investments from
the private sector.
Madam Dappah expressed satisfaction with last year's Timber
industry's earnings, saying Ghana earned 170 million Euros
form the export of 451,608 cubic meters of wood products.
Entreating the foresters to take charge of the forests with
emphasis on environmental management to ensure that both
present and future generations benefited, Madam Dappah said
forestry provided direct employment to over 100,000 people
and indirect employment to over 2.5 million Ghanaians.
The forests, she said constituted a priceless ecological
heritage, protecting land and water resources, controlling
floods, warding off wind erosion, storing and re-cycling
carbon and providing habitats for wildlife, as well as rich
stock of valuable genetic resources.
Madam Dappah told the staff to work as if it were their own
businesses so that the needed results could be achieved.
GNA
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