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ArticleFarmers’ perceptions of herbicide usage in forest landscape restoration programs in Ghana
XV World Forestry Congress, 2-6 May 2022
2022Also available in:
No results found.Although herbicides have extensively been used in forest landscape restoration its effects and opportunity costs have rarely been studied in Ghana. This study assessed the perceptions on the effects of herbicide usage among farmers enrolled in a taungya i.e. farm forestry programs in the dry semi-deciduous ecological zone of Ghana. Data was collected from 300 taungya farmers and 50 herbicide traders and analyzed descriptively and quantitatively. Results indicate that 100% of farmers perceived herbicides as having deleterious effects on flora (seedlings, under-storey wild foods, medicines) and fauna (soil micro-organisms, fish in rivers) as well as water quality, soil structure and human health. Nevertheless, 93% of them use herbicides to reduce labour costs and to establish larger acreages. Based on their functional properties, 85% of herbicides traded are non- selective for bush clearing and 15% are selective for weeding. Farmers use them indiscriminately due to poor knowledge on recommended practices and intensity of invasiveness of weed species. Education, residential status and age of respondents significantly predicted usage. The study recommends a review of Ghana’s pesticide deployment strategies and herbicides guide book for use in farm forestry. Capacity of frontline forestry professionals, traders and farmer-based organizations must be enhanced to effectively advice and monitor safe application. Plant based herbicides must be promoted for safety and enhancement of biodiversity. Keywords: Pesticides, herbicides, herbicide pollution in forest-ecosystems, herbicides in forest vegetation management, taungya system ID: 3486132 -
ArticleDoes independent forest monitoring reduce forest infringement? Insights from Ghana’s collaborative mobile-based IFM system
XV World Forestry Congress, 2-6 May 2022
2022Also available in:
No results found.Independent Forest Monitoring (IFM) has been a feature of international effort to improve forest governance since its beginning in Cambodia in 1999. Today, IFM has gained traction and is an integral element of emerging forest governance schemes such as voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) which seeks to promote trade in legal timber between EU member countries and timber-producing countries in the global south. Within the VPA, IFM aims to complement the national due diligence mechanisms by flagging illegalities and providing opportunities for redress. Ghana is one such country where IFM is emerging within the country's VPA to address perennial forest governance challenges including corruption. This is often done through projects that develop and train communities on forest laws and provide them with mobile phones and appropriate software applications to monitor and flagged illegalities within their localities. Although this has been done over the years little insights are available on how this IFM architecture has performed. Such analysis is required to understand if IFM presents any hope for sanitizing the forest sector. On the back of this, this paper review community IFM monitoring reports identify key trends on forest illegalities and how they were addressed or otherwise. We found that the real-time monitoring platform has generated 747 alerts as of December 2019. Nearly 72% of them have been verified with most Social Responsibility Agreement (SRA) related infractions resulting in some 32 communities receiving SRA for the first time or on a continuous basis. The study concludes that communities are now protecting their forest as a result of compliance from timber companies which has generated revenue in the form of social responsibility agreements for community projects. Managers of the forest reserves are now responsive to queries as a result of the digital nature of the alerts. Keywords: Monitoring and data collection, Deforestation and forest degradation, Sustainable forest management, Governance ID: 3470164 -
ArticleLand use and land use changes by the farmers from mulberry (Morus alba) plantations to green forest tree based farming for income growth and sustainability in Malda district of India
XV World Forestry Congress, 2-6 May 2022
2022Also available in:
No results found.Malda district was famous for two economic activities viz. Mango (Mangifera indica) cultivation and rearing mulberry silkworm (Bombyx mori). Earlier silkworm rearing was a flourishing cottage industry and every households of Kaliachak block reared silkworm for cocoon production. It was the major livelihood of rural farmers but they suffered heavily due to cheap import of silk from China. Thus, the backbone of farmers was crippled, hence they started cultivating various trees in mulberry fields along with agricultural crops for sustaining their livelihood. Present study was undertaken to know how farmers adjusted to new situation, their knowledge about trees, income growth and sustainability. It was observed that mulberry was raised as herb and leaves were fed to the silkworm larvae at home. Traditionally farmers planted Dalbergia sissoo trees on the border of mulberry fields but later on they started planting other trees. A few farmers uprooted their mulberry bushes and converted to Swietenia macrophylla plantation. Some farmers converted their entire land to Mango and Litchi chinensis orchards for long term gains. Besides, some traditional farmers, around 10% still continued with silkworm rearing for their livelihood security but planted few rows of trees like Tectona grandis, D.sissoo, Bombax ceiba, S.macrophylla and Acacia auriculiformis. Few big farmers converted their mulberry fields into ponds for fishery, however, planted Mango and Sissoo on border. The first crops inside the tree plantations were Maize, Papaya and Vegetables which gave farmers quick income. Later, Banana and Citrus were planted. These activities are still continuing, but timber harvesting has also started which will give high returns. These forest tree based land changes not only provided sustainable income growth to farmers, but also made them drought resilient leading to climate change mitigation and adaptation besides conserving plant biodiversity. Key words: Landscape management, Agriculture, Biodiversity conservation ID: 3475637
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