“When Will the Tree Grow for Me to Benefit from It?”: Tree Tenure Reform to Counter Mining in Southwestern Ghana
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Date
2023
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Society & Natural Resources
Abstract
In 2021, Ghana was Africa’s largest gold producer and sixth largest
producer worldwide. However, mining wrecks tremendous environmental havoc and poses significant human health risks. Efforts to
mitigate these impacts have focused exclusively on regularizing mining, with little recognition of the crucial role farmers play in mining,
particularly as agents that lease their land for the same. Ghana’s new
tree tenure policy allows cocoa farmers to acquire individualized,
allodial rights to commercial timber species on their farms, which
permits famers to capture forestry sector payments. We examine
farmers’ impressions of tree tenure reform as a potential counter to
mining in eleven communities in Western and Western North
regions, using focus group and individual interviews. While the concept of tree tenure is enthusiastically embraced, practical difficulties
encountered by smallholders attempting to navigate the bureaucratic registration system limit the sway of tree registration and ownership as a means of limiting mining proliferation.
Description
Research Article