Forestry Commission To Streamline Chainsaw Operations

As part of the on-going interventions to ensure sustainable forest management and best practices by some timber producing companies and chainsaw millers, a European Union (EU) sponsored project aimed at developing alternatives for illegal chainsaw lumbering through multi-stakeholder dialogue between Ghana and Guyana (South America) has taken place in the Guyana capital, Georgetown. The main objective of the project was to ensure how best chainsaw lumbering, which is illegal in Ghana, could be legalised in a different regime to avoid the indiscriminate manner it operates in and therefore have it legalised in a more refined mode, Mr. Alex A. Boadu, Director of Operations, Forest Services Division of the Forestry Commission, has disclosed in Accra. He said, in Ghana, a research team comprising the Forestry Commission, Forest Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG) and Netherlands is engaged in research to find an alternative solution to deforestation arising from chainsaw operations and share the findings with Guyana. Mr. Boadu disclosed that Ghana has similar chainsaw challenges as Guyana, but the only difference is that while chainsaw lumbering is illegal in Ghana, it is however legal in Guyana because of the ideal system being practiced. He explained that in Ghana chainsaw milling is done �free-hand�, which is detrimental to our forests and ecosystem, and hopes that by the time the project ends Ghana will adopt a similar refined method of chainsaw milling to that being done in Guyana. He said the project, which started in 2009 and is assessed every year by the two countries, falls within the context of a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) which is a legally-binding agreement between the European Union and some timber-producing countries to ensure that only legally produced timber products can enter the European Union markets. Mr. Boadu stressed that Ghana can reverse the rate of deforestation when the project is finally implemented.