Forest Bioeconomy in Ghana: Understanding the Potential Indicators for Its Sustainable Development

Nyarko, Isaac; Nwaogu, Chukwudi; Hájek, Miroslav

doi:10.3390/f14040804

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The country had high net CO2e emissions between 1990 and 1996, although its sinks rapidly decreased in size [56]. The swift decrease in sinks has been associated with deforestation, particularly a rapid increase in wood energy consumption, timber harvesting, agricultural and settlement expansion, and mining, and low rates of reforestation [54,[57][58][59]. In terms of climatic conditions, the country is characterized by a tropical climate with different wet and dry seasons [60,61].…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dynamics and Potential of Carbon Stocks as an Indicator of Sustainable Development for Forest Bioeconomy in Ghana

Nyarko,

Nwaogu,

Diagi

et al. 2024

Forests

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Sustainable forest bioeconomy (SFB), as a multidimensional approach for establishing mutual benefits between forest ecosystems, the environment, the economy, and humans, is a nature-based solution for a promising future. The study aims to evaluate the potential of carbon stocks (Cstocks) and variability for SFB. It is hypothesized that the decrease in Cstocks is related to an increase in population and agriculture, which caused a decrease in forest area and growing stock and consequently affected SFB. Primary and secondary data were collected from the field, national, and international databases, and analyzed using some statistical and geospatial software packages including IBM SPSS 29.0, CANOCO 5.0, and ArcGIS 10.5. The results revealed that large forest areas were converted to arable lands between 2000 and 2020. Across the forest zones, the aboveground and belowground Cstocks varied significantly, with the aboveground biomass being higher than the belowground biomass. The main drivers of Cstocks were politics and governance (57%), population growth (50%), soil degradation practices (50%), and socio-cultural beliefs (45%). Cstocks had significant negative correlation with population growth, carbon emissions, forest growing stock, forest loss, and the use of forest for biofuel. Evergreen forest zones (rainforest and moist) had more Cstocks than the moist deciduous and swamp/mangrove forests. The study demonstrated that the variability in Cstocks over the last three decades is attributed to an increase in population and agriculture, but Cstocks variability between the forest-vegetation belts could be better explained by differences in trees abundance than population. The study also revealed that the increase in Cstocks contributed to the realization of many SDGs, especially SDG 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, and 15, which in turn support a sustainable forest bioeconomy. Future study is necessary to evaluate Cstocks in individual tree species, biodiversity, and other forest ecosystem services to promote SFB in the country.

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Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dynamics and Potential of Carbon Stocks as an Indicator of Sustainable Development for Forest Bioeconomy in Ghana

Nyarko,

Nwaogu,

Diagi

et al. 2024

Forests

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“…With an annual deforestation rate of 3.6% (Forestry Commission 2021 ), Ghana is experiencing one of the highest levels of deforestation in the world (Nyarko et al 2023 ). Smallholder farmers are major contributors to forest cover loss in the high forest zone (Forestry Commission 2017 , 2021 ).…”

Section: Conceptual and Contextual Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actor Perceptions of the Governance Framework and Non-Carbon Benefits from the Ghana Cocoa Forest REDD+ Program: An Extended Q-Study of the Juabuso-Bia Hotspot Intervention Area

Dugasseh,

Adams,

Zandersen

2024

Environmental Management

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The expansion of cocoa farms is a major driver of deforestation and emissions in Ghana’s high forest zone. The Ghana Cocoa Forest Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Program (REDD+) was launched as the world’s first commodity-based initiative to address emissions from deforestation caused by cocoa production and generate non-carbon benefits. Hotspot Intervention Areas were established to implement the Ghana Cocoa REDD+ program. This study combines Q-methodology with focus group discussions and interviews to assess stakeholder perceptions in the Juabuso-Bia cocoa landscape regarding the capacity of the Hotspot Intervention Area to facilitate the generation of governance and economic non-carbon benefits to sustain emission reductions. We found that introducing the Hotspot Intervention Area has re-centralized landscape governance, which, coupled with weak collaboration among stakeholders, has led to poor generation of non-carbon benefits. Furthermore, efforts to include women in the leadership structure of the Hotspot Intervention Area can be described as tokenism, and little has been done to improve land and tree tenure for vulnerable groups. This, combined with the low adoption of climate-smart cocoa practices, is likely to negatively affect the generation of economic non-carbon benefits. To overcome these challenges, we recommend reforming the Hotspot Intervention Area, bolstering community-level sensitization, improving access to decision-making spaces that will enhance the participation of women and minority groups in landscape governance, and improving farmers’ tenure security through a registration scheme for land and trees. These recommendations can ensure the efficient generation of non-carbon benefits, which are key to the success of REDD+.

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Gender differences in research fields of bioeconomy and rural development-based on sustainable systems in Latin America and Africa regions

Olivo,

Oluwakemi,

Lakner

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

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Using bibliometric analysis of large-scale publication data is a simple approach to exploring gender-related trends, especially gender equality in academic publishing. The aim of this study is to investigate gender trends in the fields of bio-economy and rural development sciences in two under develop regions as Latin America and Africa. This study examines gender differences in these fields in order to: (1) recognize the contribution of female researchers in bioeconomy and rural development, (2) explore the relational structure of gender aspects in academic publications, (3) identify trends in female authorship in these scientific research fields over time, and finally (4) identify gender potentials for women to become more visible in these fields of study. To achieve these objectives, we used bibliometric tools to analyses 1891 publication records in bioeconomy and rural development. After cleaning the database of full names of authors of academic publications relevant to the field studies, we performed a series of statistical analyses in R and SPSS software, such as Lotkas distribution, network analysis, co-authorship analysis and spatial distribution of authors in the study. The results show that the number of male authors is almost three times higher than the number of female authors, suggesting that women are under-represented in the fields studied. Men occupy the most important position of authorship in scientific articles; publications with corresponding male authors were found in 1389 out of 1891 publications related to the bio-economy and rural development. In terms of geographical regions, publications with female authors were more prevalent in European and North American areas, with a small exception in some developing countries such as Argentina and South Africa. In terms of research networks, from the total number of authors evaluated, only 23% are female authors on the map of research influence. This indicates that there is a significant gap to be filled in the promotion of scholarly impact through the sharing of knowledge and expertise among authors.

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Forest Bioeconomy in Ghana: Understanding the Potential Indicators for Its Sustainable Development

Cited by 3 publications

References 53 publications

The Dynamics and Potential of Carbon Stocks as an Indicator of Sustainable Development for Forest Bioeconomy in Ghana

The Dynamics and Potential of Carbon Stocks as an Indicator of Sustainable Development for Forest Bioeconomy in Ghana

Actor Perceptions of the Governance Framework and Non-Carbon Benefits from the Ghana Cocoa Forest REDD+ Program: An Extended Q-Study of the Juabuso-Bia Hotspot Intervention Area

Gender differences in research fields of bioeconomy and rural development-based on sustainable systems in Latin America and Africa regions

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