Farming forest enclosures : contestations, practices and implications for tackling deforestation in Ghana

Scientists and policymakers are waking to the menacing impacts of deforestation on biodiversity and the livelihoods of the over one billion people reliant on forests. Concurrently, an upward trend in population and its corresponding rise in the global demand for feed, food, fuel, and fibre exerts new demands on limited land resources available to multiple stakeholders. As the competition over land intensifies, many farmers in the tropics employ several strategies to cultivate areas designated as forest reserves for their livelihoods, leading to further deforestation and conflicts with state forestry agencies. Moreover, despite decades of investments in institutions to directly fund smallholder farmers participation in rehabilitating deforested landscapes, little is known about the reach and performance of existing financial incentive mechanisms. This dissertation adds to filling these knowledge gaps based on qualitative case studies embedded in multiple analytical and data collection approaches in Ghana, which loses near 2% (135,000 ha) of its forests annually despite several efforts to overcome the challenge. Following a brief introduction and clarification of conceptual underpinning in Chapter 1, the knowledge gaps are addressed with three empirical publications (chapters 2-4). Chapter two examines why and how farmers in forest communities gain and secure access to their farmlands within forest reserves to produce food and cash crops against state law. Through process-net maps, focus group discussions, interviews, and field observation, data were gathered through an extended field stay in Ghanas Juabeso district. The findings unbridle the multiple structural and relational mechanisms farmers apply to evade state attempts to rein in illegal farming in the area and how institutional deficiencies, notably corruption and elite capture of farming benefits by native chiefs, reinforce farming in forest reserves. The chapter discusses the broader implications of the findings for the Ghanaian governments attempts to accelerate forest landscape rehabilitation, noting that such efforts will need to adapt to the multiple struggles and latent actor interests to succeed. Chapter three disentangles the narratives and experiences of forest communities and compares them with the current assumptions underlying forest policy in Ghana from the perspective of the most dominant forest policy actors. The results contend with current assumptions that portray forest communities as environmentally destructive. Alternatively, it reveals that while several factors combine to drive forest-dependent communities to cultivate forest reserves, the challenge of food insecurity is paramount but unconveyed to the forest policy arena. The chapter proposes a novel concept of food security corridors (FSCs) as a meta-narrative for harmonising competing actor interests in forest reserves. The chapter also discusses the feasibility of FSCs and calls for further efforts to refine and pilot the concept in the global search for solutions to forest and agriculture land-use conflicts in the tropics. Chapter four examines the governance of Ghanas Forest Plantation Development Fund as an incentive system instituted to attract smallholders into landscape rehabilitation based on interviews with tree growers, forestry officials and NGO staff. The study revealed that the legal provisions instituted to ensure the funds transparent operation were not implemented by fund administrators. Many stakeholders were clueless about the Fund and could neither access nor demand accountability in its administration. The chapter clarifies the information needs of various fund stakeholders, such as eligibility criteria, funding cycles, annual inflows and outflows, and a list of beneficiaries. It also discusses the implications of the findings, including mechanisms required to trigger the transparent running of the fund by its administrators. The thesis reveals new patterns of perennial land competition between state and traditional institutions. It demonstrates how prevailing institutional challenges reinforce this competition and enable unsustainable land use to flourish. At the same, it points to lapses in governance, including state failure to evolve its forest policies to meet changing demands and needs among contemporary actors and how the same challenges curtail access and ability to support forestation rehabilitation efforts in Ghana. Overall, the thesis notes that while tackling farming in forest reserves can be challenging due to its multiple drivers and the competing actor interests, FSCs have the potential to serve as an entry point that enables government and other actors to resolve their differences and find lasting solutions that enable local communities to achieve their livelihoods needs while contributing to sustainable land use. However, for this potential to be realised, actors need to invest in refining and piloting FSCs in specific localities.Wissenschaftler und politische Entscheidungsträger werden sich der bedrohlichen Auswirkungen der Entwaldung auf die biologische Vielfalt und die Lebensgrundlage von über einer Milliarde Menschen bewusst, die auf Wälder angewiesen sind. Gleichzeitig führen die steigende Bevölkerungszahl und der damit verbundene Anstieg der weltweiten Nachfrage nach Futtermitteln, Nahrungsmitteln, Brennstoffen und Fasern zu neuen Anforderungen an die begrenzten Landressourcen, die den verschiedenen Interessengruppen zur Verfügung stehen. Da sich der Wettbewerb um Land verschärft, wenden viele Landwirte in den Tropen verschiedene Strategien an, um als Waldreservate ausgewiesene Flächen für ihren Lebensunterhalt zu bewirtschaften, was zu weiterer Entwaldung und Konflikten mit staatlichen Forstbehörden führt. Trotz jahrzehntelanger Investitionen in Institutionen zur direkten Finanzierung der Beteiligung von Kleinbauern an der Wiederherstellung entwaldeter Landschaften ist nur wenig über die Reichweite und Leistungsfähigkeit der bestehenden finanziellen Anreizmechanismen bekannt. Diese Dissertation trägt dazu bei, diese Wissenslücken zu schließen, und zwar auf der Grundlage qualitativer Fallstudien, die in verschiedene Analyse- und Datenerhebungsansätze in Ghana eingebettet sind, wo trotz verschiedener Bemühungen zur Bewältigung dieser Herausforderung jährlich fast 2 % (135.000 ha) der Waldfläche verloren gehen. Nach einer kurzen Einführung und Klärung der konzeptionellen Grundlagen in Kapitel 1 werden die Wissenslücken mit drei empirischen Veröffentlichungen (Kapitel 2-4) angegangen. In Kapitel zwei wird untersucht, warum und wie Landwirte in Waldgemeinden Zugang zu ihrem Ackerland innerhalb von Waldreservaten erhalten und sichern, um entgegen dem staatlichen Recht Nahrungsmittel und Nutzpflanzen anzubauen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen die vielfältigen strukturellen und relationalen Mechanismen auf, mit denen sich die Landwirte den Versuchen des Staates entziehen, die illegale Landwirtschaft in dem Gebiet einzudämmen, und wie institutionelle Mängel, insbesondere Korruption und die Aneignung der landwirtschaftlichen Vorteile durch die einheimischen Häuptlinge, die Landwirtschaft in den Waldreservaten fördern. Das Kapitel erörtert die allgemeinen Auswirkungen der Ergebnisse auf die Versuche der ghanaischen Regierung, die Wiederherstellung der Waldlandschaft zu beschleunigen, und stellt fest, dass solche Bemühungen nur dann erfolgreich sein können, wenn sie den vielfältigen Kämpfen und latenten Interessen der Akteure Rechnung tragen. In Kapitel drei werden die Erzählungen und Erfahrungen der Waldgemeinschaften aufgeschlüsselt und mit den aktuellen Annahmen verglichen, die der ghanaischen Forstpolitik aus der Sicht der wichtigsten forstpolitischen Akteure zugrunde liegen. Die Ergebnisse widerlegen die gängigen Annahmen, die die Waldgemeinschaften als umweltzerstörerisch darstellen. In diesem Kapitel wird das neuartige Konzept der Korridore für Ernährungssicherheit (FSC) als Meta-Erzählung zur Harmonisierung konkurrierender Interessen von Akteuren in Waldreservaten vorgeschlagen. Das Kapitel erörtert auch die Machbarkeit von FSCs und fordert weitere Anstrengungen zur Verfeinerung und Erprobung des Konzepts bei der globalen Suche nach Lösungen für Konflikte zwischen Wald und Landwirtschaft in den Tropen. In Kapitel vier wird die Verwaltung des ghanaischen Forest Plantation Development Fund anhand von Interviews mit Baumzüchtern, Forstbeamten und NRO-Mitarbeitern untersucht. Die Studie ergab, dass die Richtlinien des Fonds von seinen Verwaltern nicht umgesetzt werden. Viele Beteiligte wussten nichts über den Fonds und konnten weder Zugang zu ihm haben noch Rechenschaft über seine Verwaltung einfordern. In diesem Kapitel wird der Informationsbedarf der verschiedenen Akteure des Fonds geklärt, z. B. in Bezug auf Förderkriterien, Finanzierungszyklen, jährliche Zu- und Abflüsse und eine Liste der Begünstigten. Außerdem werden die Auswirkungen der Ergebnisse erörtert, einschließlich der Mechanismen, die erforderlich sind, um eine transparente Verwaltung des Fonds durch seine Verwalter zu gewährleisten. Die Arbeit zeigt neue Muster der Landkonkurrenz zwischen staatlichen und gewohnheitsrechtlichen Institutionen auf. Sie zeigt, wie bestehende institutionelle Herausforderungen den Wettbewerb und eine nicht nachhaltige Landnutzung verstärken. Insgesamt stellt die Arbeit fest, dass die Bewirtschaftung von Waldreservaten aufgrund der vielfältigen Faktoren und der konkurrierenden Interessen der Akteure zwar eine Herausforderung darstellt, die FSC jedoch das Potenzial haben, als Ansatzpunkt zu dienen, der es der Regierung und anderen Akteuren ermöglicht, ihre Differenzen beizulegen und dauerhafte Lösungen zu finden, der jedoch verfeinert und erprobt werden muss

Is the EU shirking responsibility for its deforestation footprint in tropical countries? Power, material, and epistemic inequalities in the EU’s global environmental governance

This paper critically examines the European Union’s (EU) role in tropical deforestation and the bloc’s actions to mitigate it. We focus on two EU policy communications aimed at the challenge: stepping up EU action to protect and restore the world's forests and the EU updated bioeconomy strategy. In addition, we refer to the European Green Deal, which articulates the bloc’s overarching vision for sustainability and transformations. We find that by casting deforestation as a production problem and a governance challenge on the supply side, these policies deflect attention from some of the key drivers of tropical deforestation—the EU’s overconsumption of deforestation-related commodities and asymmetric market and trade power relations. The diversion allows the EU unfettered access to agro-commodities and biofuels, which are important inputs to the EU’s green transition and bio-based economy. Upholding a ‘sustainability image’ within the EU, an overly business-as-usual approach has taken precedence over transformative policies, enabling multinational corporations to run an ecocide treadmill, rapidly obliterating tropical forests. Whereas the EU's plan to nurture a bioeconomy and promote responsible agro-commodities production in the global South are relevant, the bloc is evasive in setting firm targets and policy measures to overcome the inequalities that spring from and enable its overconsumption of deforestation-related commodities. Drawing on degrowth and decolonial theories, we problematise the EU’s anti-deforestation policies and highlight alternative ideas that could lead to more just, equitable and effective measures for confronting the tropical deforestation conundrum

The Evolving Governance of REDD+

Peer reviewe

Food-security corridors: A crucial but missing link in tackling deforestation in Southwestern Ghana

Forest conversion for farming remains an issue of scientific and societal concern due to its growing impacts on biodiversity and climate change. Therefore, scientists and policymakers emphasise the urgent need to find a balance between forest conservation and agriculture. Meanwhile, across tropical Africa, subsistence farmers account for nearly two-thirds of forest conversion to farms annually. These farmers’ perceptions and experiences about forest conversion may offer alternative perspectives about the problem and how to tackle it. However, such viewpoints remain scanty in the sustainable forestry literature. This paper employs narrative policy analysis to disentangle the stories that underpin farming by forest-fringe communities (FFCs) in protected forests. The FFCs’ narratives were identified through fieldwork in 12 forest communities of Southwestern Ghana and juxtaposed with forest regulators and cocoa sector actors’ narrativization of forest conversion in Ghana. The results indicate that a combination of factors incite FFCs to farm in protected forests, but the perceived need to respond to food insecurity is the most crucial factor. In the absence of strong grassroots organisations, FFCs cannot convey this crucial need to the forest policy arena, leaving it largely unaddressed in forest policy. Thus, forest encroachment has become a tool for FFCs to resist forest conservation, and generally, as a means for their survival. The paper proposes food security corridors (FSCs) as an integrated landscape management option that can enable FFCs and other policy actors to negotiate and institute food security and conservation goalswithin communities trapped in blocks of forest reserves. The potential FSCs hold to overcome forest conversion for subsistence farming can be unleashed when governments, development partners invest to refine and pilot the concept. Overall, the paper contributes to the land-use conflict literature, showing how context-specific food insecurity can accelerate deforestation. Forestry sector actors need to guard against oversimplifying their assumptions about forest conversion in order to find pragmatic and sustainable solutions to the problem

Customary power, farmer strategies and the dynamics of access to protected forestlands for farming: Implications for Ghana's forest bioeconomy

In the last decade, multiple scientists and policymakers have been promoting bioeconomy for decarbonisation and as a way to tackle the ongoing socio-ecological crises. An effective transition to the bioeconomy in developing countries, which are predominantly agrarian,depends partly on its amenability to existing land access regimes and how actors in such countries are able to manage competing claims and needs associated with land use for biomass production. However, this is sparingly examined in the bioeconomy-politics literature. Using a case study from Ghana, a Global South context aspiring towards a forest-based bioeconomy, we analyze how overlapping legal and normative institutions mediate forest-dependent communities' access to lands in forest reserves for their food and other livelihood needs. The study found that state and traditional institutions are racing to sanction forest communities' access to forest reserve lands in order to consolidate their authority over the area. In the emerging bioeconomy, the state employs plantation forestry as a tool to consolidate its control. Concurrently, traditional authorities contend this by facilitating farmers' access to the same area for cocoa production to establish claims to the land. Amid this contest, forest communities have constructed a robust discourse centred on their ‘right to food’, enabling them to apply their rich local knowledge to cultivate food and cash crops in forest reserves without deference to state institutions and traditional authorities. State forestry officials react by cutting down these ‘illegal farms’, causing periodic food insecurity in the study localities. Some farmers respond by adapting their access mechanisms, cultivating deeper into the reserve to evade forestry officials. The dynamism of this conflict makes sustainable resource use challenging in the study localities. But it also indicates that without proper safeguards and a coherent rural development policy, the bioeconomy will become an approach for reproducing oppressive land accumulation, impeding forest communities ability to address their food and livelihood needs. Thus, while the findings bring to date the growing struggle over land in Sub-Saharan Africa, it cautions that governments need to recognize that the bioeconomy, despite its promise of sustainability, is no quick fix for entrenched structural problems in rural Africa.202