Forestry Research Institute of Ghana

FORESTS AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT  DIVISION

There will be two (2) main research programmes, namely:

(i) Forest & Wildlife management

(ii) Forest and Wildlife Governance

FOREST AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME

Research will focus on the following:

1. Resource Assessment, Planning and Management
2. Silvicultural Systems
3. Timber harvesting: Including impacts and the review of the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) and Compensatory Plantings.
4. Wildlife Management and Nature-Based Eco-Tourism
5. Plantation Development: The proposed research activity will focus on the Modified Taungya System and Commercial Plantation Development. It will also address the wood deficit situation
6. Landscape Restoration
7. Wildfire management
8. Securing existing natural resources endowments
9. Forest legislation and resource harvesting and management prescriptions: (logging manuals, harvesting guidelines, tenure security, benefit sharing arrangements) to take cognizance of the peculiar nature of plantation forest management;

FORESTS AND GOVERNANCE PROGRAMME

Research under the Forests and Governance programme will entail the following:

Institutional governance and transparency

• Resource Allocation (Competitive bidding)
• Law enforcement
• Corruption (Rent Seeking Behaviour)
• 
  

Policy formulation and Implementation

• Building a wider stakeholder interest and capacity for effective participation in forest policy development
• Pro-people forest policies and legal framework
• Costs and benefits associated with integrated policy
• Mechanisms and incentives for participation in integrated policy formulation

Conflict management (Conflict resolution mechanisms and strategies)

• Root causes, dynamics and cost of forest related conflicts
• Conflicts related to mining in forest reserves
• Conflicts at the agriculture-forestry interface

1. Decentralisation of forest governance & devolution of power
2. Effective monitoring, accountability and legal safeguards

• Enforcement of existing regulations and legislation
• Mechanisms for effective monitoring
• Tools for ensuring accountability and transparency
• Improved capacity to enforce regulations

Promotion of pluralism in natural resources management

• Minimise political interference in decision- making in forestry
• Forest actors behaviour and impact on SFM
• Democratic processes and protection of forest rights

Illegal logging and chainsaw milling operations

• Causes and effects of illegal logging
• Requirements for minimising illegal logging
• The role of markets in illegal logging
• Effective and acceptable way of regulating chainsaw milling