Ageing Affecting pre-felling survey teams accuracy
Timber contractors in the Assin-fosu locality have alleged that age is catching up with members of the pre-felling survey teams of the Forest Services Division (FSD) of the forestry commission and this is affecting the quality of work undertaken by the teams.
According to the contractors, the aging team members are unable to thoroughly comb the forest reserve or outside reserve area which is to be subjected for timber rights allocation to take inventory. They claim due to age and its associated health deteriorating issues, some of the team members especially the team leaders resort to staying in a community and send out the rest of the members to conduct the survey and report with no means of verifying whether the report received is a true reflection of the exercise.
Rendering the account, the contractors claim most of the team members who usually have no inclination to forest operations in terms of education in forestry, knowing the incapability of their team leaders, resort to shabby works; conjuring diameters for trees in areas where they deem difficult to access, improper identification of trees (species), improper numbering of trees, etc.
Again, the contractors alleged that the few leaders who can accompany their team members also commit lots of mistakes and omissions which they blame on hearing difficulties due to age.
This, the contractors say, is affecting their work as valuable matured trees are left out in the stock surveys and subsequently yield allocation and later become substrate for illegal chainsaw operators. The contractors are therefore calling on the Forestry Commission, especially the FSD to recruit competent staff who have been trained in forest operations to compose the pre-felling inventory team and gradually take over from the aging team leaders.
This issue came up during a training workshop organized by the Nature and Development Foundation (NDF) for selected timber operators in the enclave. The training centered on ‘FLEGT legality compliance’. Other topics covered included, understanding the Ghana Legality Assurance system (GhLAS), Regular Non-compliance by the Private Sector in VPA Legality Regime – as they occur and how to address it’. Chain of custody for saw milling operations and calculations on input and output volumes of timber.
The training workshop is a part of implementing the project “Building Capacities of Small-Medium Forest Enterprises (SMFEs) In Ghana and Liberia to Supply and Trade in Legal Timber-Phase II” which is receiving funding support from UK aid through their FGMC programme.
AUTHOR
Nature & Development Foundation
