CHAINSAW MILLING IN GHANA: CONTExT, DRIVERS ... - Fornis.net

Chapter 5. Social, economic and environmental impacts5.1.2 Social acceptanceChainsaw milling is well accepted by stakeholders in Ghana. In a survey conductedby Marfo and Nutakor (2009) involving forest managers, chainsaw operators, farmersand the general public (including political leaders, chiefs and opinion leaders), about80% of stakeholders agreed that CSM should be regularised. The report also showedthat about 70% of the District Forest Managers thought that CSM should be regularised(Figure 5).Figure 5. District Forest Managers’ view ofwhether CSM should be regularisedSource: Marfo and Nutakor 2009;n = 22agreedisagreenot surestrongly agreeThis observation is important; officials on the ground likely have a better understandingof the problems involved with enforcement than most of the participants whoare privileged to be involved in national policy discussions. It also contradicts officialnational policy discourse on the subject, which tends to focus on enforcement.5.1.3 Conflict between operators and communitiesConflicts related to CSM involve operators and communities (farmers), and operatorsand forestry officials (including court cases). The two most common operatorcommunityconflicts involve consultation with farmers before logging and paymentof compensation for crop damages. Discord related to compensation has beendentified as one of the most pervasive conflicts in the forestry sector (Marfo 2006).Even though the farmers and operators interviewed by Nutakor and Marfo (2009)mentioned incidences of conflict, in most cases there was also an indication of positiveinteraction between the two parties. In about 74% of the cases, farmers reportedthat they knew the operators who felled trees on their farms. This seems to supportthe claim that — notwithstanding misunderstandings that might arise — there seemsto be significant connivance between farmers and chainsaw operators. This underliessupport of CSM at the community level.Nutakor and Marfo (2009) reported that more than 90% of the operators claimed toconsult with farmers before removing trees on their farms. This was roughly confirmedby farmers; nearly 80% of them admitted that they were informed beforetrees were logged on their farms. Even though this rate of consultation seems highcompared to observations in other studies (Marfo, Acheampong and Osae 2006), 1339