The Legal Standard Working Group submitted its report to the VPA Steering Committee on 28 February. The report finds that Ghana’s current forestry legislative does not adequately support the provisions of the Ghana’s Constitution, its Forest and Wildlife Policy or the Forest Governance Vision adopted by the Steering Committee to guide the VPA and subsequent reform processes. It thus recommends a 2 – year process of participatory policy and statutory reform to enable
Key aspirations of the proposed reform are captured in the legality definition proposed by the Working Group. The definition provides 9 principles or standards covering source of timber, allocation of timber rights, conduct of felling operations, transportation of timber, wood processing, timber trade and fiscal obligations of producers and traders. It provides criteria and indicators for determining compliance with these standards. Key elements include a requirement for communities’ FPIC prior to logging of their resources. The definition also specifies the permits that can be used for commercial timber operations and the transparent competitive processes through which these must be awarded..
The Policy sub-Committee accepted the Working Group’s recommendations with one exception. It proposed introduction of a new kind of felling permit to regulate logging in low-density, off-reserve forests. This would allow the FC (subject to environmental, economic and social impact assessments and to community FPIC) to award scale permits through district-level auctions. Significantly the Timber Rights Fees from these auctions will go to communities and not to the FC or the State. The FC will receive only standard auctioneer’s fees.
14 September 2007Kwame A. Oduro & Kwame Gyan
709k DOC
14 June 2007Kwame A. Oduro & Kwame Gyan
506k DOC
