ghana climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment

Source: US Geological Survey, (http://lca.usgs.gov/lca/africalulc/images/ghana_lulc_change_pair_factsheet_map_1280.jpgFigure 6. 3 IncreasingFragmentation of Forest Cover in Ghana 1975 -2000Deforestation drivers are proximate or underlying (Geist and Lambin 2002; Kanninen, Murdiyarso et al. 2007). Inthe HFZ, proximate factors are agricultural expansion and intensification, wood extraction, and infrastructureexpansionn (Hansen, Lund et al. 2009) ). Although these activities can be traced back centuries before Europeancontact in Ghana, inter-tribal timber exploitation and expansion of cocoa export in the late 1800s (Asante 2005). By the 1930s,slash and burn agriculture, bushfires, and grazing were seen as causes of forest degradationthroughout thewarfarelocalized their effects (Asante 2005). Large-scale deforestation began withcommercialcountry (Wardell, Reenberg et al. 2003). Customaryownership of land, vestedwith the tribal chiefs (Stools in thesouth, Skins in the north), was seen as incompatible with rational forest management and areas were set aside asgazetted forest reserves by the colonial administrations, regulating use of these lands, a process completed by the1950s in the whole country (Wardell, Reenberg et al. 2003; Asante 2005; Hansen, Lund et al. 2009). The system offorest reserves has beenmaintained by the post-colonial governments and currently residess with the ForestryCommission; Wardell et al. (2003) argue that pre-colonial land use patterns and colonial forestry interventionscontinue to influence current land use and natural resource management.In the HFZ, forest clearance for cocoa productionbegan in the east and has been spreading westward. Mostcanopy trees were removed although some were left to provide shade for the coca seedlings. Large areaswerecleared bylocal farmersbut also by migrants from the north who gained cultivation rights from the Stool chiefs(Hansen, Lund et al. 2009). The boundaries of the Forest Reserves were by and large respected and the clearanceGHANA CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION ASSESSMENT 101