COMMUNITY-BASED FOREST PROTECTION IN OFFINSO NORTH, GHANA: SUCCESSES AND SETBACKS

Abstract

The paper examines the viability of community forestry and how community participation affects the effectiveness of forest resource security and management. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques with stakeholders’ observations and perceptions of managers’ responses to major threats of forest commons were employed in this study. The paper establishes forest security through comparative analysis and discourse of solely government management intervention, solely community (private) management intervention and government-community partnership for forest management arrangements which are occurring in the Offinso Forest District of Ghana. The paper concludes that, community involvement in forest management interventions delivers better protection of forest commons; and the extent and autonomy of local community to participate actively in forest resource management significantly influences resilience against threats of forest commons. Hence, stronger community participation enhances the effectiveness of forest security efforts. Nevertheless, viability of community participation to deliver effective forest resource security is influenced by adequacy of resources in support of community forestry, empowerment and sense of ownership of communities for forest common management.