Poverty Dimensions of Public Governance and Forest Management ...

Annex 3: 9
The Forestry Service has also initiated its own programme of community participation in forest
management with the enactment of Community Forest Committees (CFCs), which liase between
communities and the Forestry Service in the management of timber. The role of the CFCs has
been defined by the Forestry Service as:
To co-ordinate consultative mechanisms on forestry issues at the community level. These
can be in the areas of policy formulation, management planning, project preparation,
resource regeneration and protection, and contract negotiations (Asare, 2000:6)
The CFC members are selected essentially by the Forestry Service in consultation with ‘the
community’. This consists of:
Representatives of all primary stakeholders who are connected with (forest) land use,
community development, traditional leadership, and community organisation. The
envisaged primary stakeholders that are represented are obviously the chiefs, as chieftaincy
remains the key institution where land matters and local consultation is concerned. Also,
farmers, the youth, women, migrants, tree planters and forest users such as hunters,
herbalists and NTFP collectors are all represented. At all times, extremely close contact
will be maintained with the unit committee and the assembly members through their
representatives on the committee (Asare, 2000:5).
Once selected the Forestry Service provides capacity building training for the CFCs:
As a first step to building their capacity, the committees will receive training in forestry and
allied subjects to enable them to perform their roles creditably. It is hoped that a Handbook
for Communities on Forest Management will be prepared. The Handbook will contain all
the information the CFCs need on Forest Policy, Forest Laws and Regulations, Plantation
Development, NTFP harvesting rights, Timber Exploitation and so on. Additional training
may also be provided in Participatory Rural Appraisal, workshop management and so forth
( Asare, 2000:5).
In evaluating the performance of the pilot CFCs, Asare (2000:8) concludes:
Under the ITTO/FSD project, 13 CFCs have been established at three pilot sites in timber
resource rich,medium and poor availability in Dunkwa (Diaso), Offinso, and Nkoranza.