Effective management of the National Parks largely depends on a participatory approach. Hitherto, fringe communities of Mole National Park were sidelined in its management. In recent times, the participation of communities in the management of forest resources in the Mole National Park is encouraged. This study examines how actors such as chiefs, land priests, clan heads, diviners, women leaders and youth groups support conservation using resource and habitat taboos, totemic system, traditional fire belt, sacred tree species and traditional awareness creation as strategies and their impacts thereof. The study employed a concurrent triangulation mixed methods approach in data collection, analysis, and presentation. Besides questionnaire administration as a quantitative method of data collection, the study made use of Key Informant Interviews, and Focus Group Discussions as qualitative methods of data collection. Apart from the use of descriptive statistics as a component of SPSS for the analysis of quantitative data, content analysis was used for the analysis of qualitative data. The study revealed that the fringe communities endorse the chiefs and the land priests (kasawule wura) as most effective actors in the management of forest flora and fauna and the totemic system as the most effective management strategy. The study concluded that, there exists local management actors, and strategies in resource management, and fringe communities and the park are impacted positively because of community participation in park management. It is recommended that, benefit-sharing schemes should be considered and developed by park management and fringe communities since this can engender commitment to participation.

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This study assessed women and sustainable livelihoods with focus on selected shea butter processing centers in Sagnarigu Municipal Assembly of the Northern Region, Ghana. The objectives of the study were to determine the challenges confronting women into shea butter processing and to examine the extent to which these challenges undermine sustainable livelihood of women. This study adopted the explanatory research designs with the quantitative research strategy. The study used structured questionnaire to gather data from 240 women. The study used Structural Equation Model to identify the challenges that significantly undermine sustainable livelihood of women. Start-up capital and credit for equipment, raw material and labor were financial challenges. Leadership, conflicts on transparency and accountability and social status were social challenges. Inadequate technical skills, poor management skills, poor record keeping were human capital challenges. Poor road network, inadequate storage facilities were physical challenges. Poor community and governmental relationship was the major institutional challenge. This study recommends urgent need to address institutional, natural capital and financial challenges confronting women into shea butter processing in the study area.

Forests play an important role in the ecological, environmental, socio-economic and cultural lives of people. However, human-nature-forest interactions bring imbalances in the state of these resources, hence the need to monitor and manage the forest proactively. This chapter, therefore, assessed the gains and losses of three national parks in Ghana (including Mole, Digya and Kakum) for the period 1986 and 2020. Landsat TM and Landsat8 OLI images were used for the assessment. The Digya National Park has a spatial extent of 4121.89 km2. In 1986, the extent of the close forest cover was 88.0% of the park and it declined to 82.8% in 2020, a loss of 6.2%. The Kakum National Park covers an area of 463.42 km2. The close forest cover was 90.15% and 89.52% of the extent of the park in 1986 and 2020, respectively. The Mole National Park covers about 4602.19 km2. In 1986, 86.73% of the park was open forest, which was reduced to 80.83%, a loss of 5.90%. The study revealed 67% of open forest degradation, 33% loss of close forest and a reported ritual bushfire, wood harvesting and lumbering as the unsustainable practices. Reclamation of degraded areas is recommended to the Forestry Commission.