i Parkia biglobosa - School of Forest Resources & Environmental ...

Natural Regeneration of Parkia biglobosa
Northern Ghana, as in most of sub Saharan Africa, is suffering from deforestation.
Ghana’s major exports are gold, cocoa, and timber (Library of Congress 2002)). Trees
from the rain forest belt in Ghana are rapidly being depleted to meet export demands. The
need for foreign exchange has outweighed conservation measures to protect trees and
forests. Only recently, in 1994, the Ministry of Lands and the Forestry Commission
adopted the Forest and Wildlife Policy to create conditions suitable for sustainable forest
resource management throughout Ghana (Kotey et al 1998).
In northern Ghana, the number of trees is being depleted by the heightened
demand resulting from increasing population pressure. An article written in August 29,
2001, Ghana’s Daily Graphic noted findings from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The article reported the alarming rate that charcoal producers were destroying economic
trees like shea and dawadawa trees. A survey in 40 communities in the Upper West
Region revealed that 80% of the charcoal produced is from shea trees and the remaining
20% produced from dawadawa trees. The Bolgatanga – Navrongo road which I often
used going into town from Kandiga was lined with mahogany trees. It was obvious to me
after two years that the many of major branches had been chopped off for wood or
charcoal and several trees were destroyed (Figure 23). The switch to economic trees like
shea and dawadawa occurred once common traditional charcoal sources like mahagony,
Acacia spp, and Pterocarpus trees were harvested (Kyei-Boateng 2001).
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