1. Introduction
The world’s forests biodiversity and ecosystem services face alarming depletion and loss due to deforestation and forest degradation (D&FD) [
1,
2]. The D&FD has become a twin global environmental problem that humanity is battling with no apparent solutions in sight. While it is accepted that D&FD is ubiquitous, it is regrettably evident that it is much more widespread in developing countries within the tropical regions where forests serve as a means of livelihoods and well-being. Deforestation, forest degradation, and other global environmental change issues have caught the global leaders’ attention, wherein several fora and conferences have been discussed and debated to find lasting approaches to address them. These discussions and debates on finding the appropriate measures and approaches to addressing D&FD have resulted in several global conventions, protocols, and interventions to achieve sustainable forest management [
3,
4,
5]. For instance, the recent global intervention of reducing deforestation and forest degradation, forest conservation, and carbon stocks enhancement (REDD+) is currently in operation in many developing tropical countries worldwide [
6]. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) refers to deforestation as involving converting forests into other land uses over the long-term, reducing tree canopy cover below the 10 percent minimum threshold [
7]. Equally, forest degradation involves changes occurring within the forest, affecting forest structures and functions and its capacity to provide services, benefits, and goods [
7]. The UNFCCC describes deforestation as human-caused activities that render forestlands non-forested [
6]. From the above definitions, deforestation signifies forest cover loss due to anthropogenic or human actions and activities. In contrast, forest degradation denotes human-caused activities or actions that render forests’ potentials and capacity to be low-quality, incapable of producing common goods and services.
Globally, forests provide a significant number of direct and indirect ecosystem services, goods, and benefits to humankind and the environment. Forests contain over three-quarters of the global terrestrial biodiversity [
8], which serve as a critical bedrock for ecosystem services [
9]. Forests constitute the primary sources of food, timber, fiber, fuelwood, and medicines to over a billion people [
8] and intangible services for regulating climate, water and soil conservation [
10]. Simultaneously, the forest can sequester carbon, act as a habitat for biodiversity, and serve tourism and recreational purposes [
11] and flood regulation, disease regulation, water purification, and shelter and habitat for billions of flora fauna species [
12]. Other supporting services help in soil nutrient cycling, soil formation, and photosynthesis for primary production [
9,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16]. Forests are expected to provide livelihoods and food security to the world’s rural poor, out of which about 250 million of them are described as extremely rural poor who dwell in forests and savannah areas, especially in the tropical regions [
8]. Forest role in carbon cycle processes, mainly [
17,
18], has caught global attention as a powerful avenue to mitigate global carbon emissions [
10].
These notwithstanding, the world’s forest is depleting alarmingly [
1] as Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA), an affiliate to FAO, discovered that the world’s forest area reduced significantly by 31.6% to 30.6% between 1990 and 2015. However, the pace of forest cover loss has been declining [
8]. Global deforestation has increased since the 1990s leading to some 420 million hectares of forestland conversion into other land uses [
19]. The global deforestation rate was expected to reach 10 million hectares per year between 2015 to 2020, lower than the 1990s rate of 16 million hectares per year, although the global primary forest has declined by over 80 million hectares since 1990 [
19]. Globally, the causes of D&FD are varied and diverse with the local, country, and regional specifics. Deforestation is due to anthropogenic and natural factors, including pests and diseases infestation, forest fires, invasive species, droughts, and extreme weather conditions and events claiming over 100 million hectares of forests [
19]. Deforestation and forest degradation pose significant threats to tropical forests [
20]. Deforestation and forest degradation also occur in some countries in Europe, although it is one region with the least degraded land areas [
19]. For example, illegal logging drives D&FD in Ukraine [
15]. Europe’s forest area saw expansion at 70,000 ha annually, though at slower rates of 900,000 ha per year during the 1990s [
7]. Thus, while some countries in Europe are experiencing forest degradation, the deforestation and forest degradation rate may not be as high as in the tropical regions for several reasons. In Europe, forest lands cannot be used for agriculture production through shifting cultivation practices as in most tropical forest countries. The practice of land-intensive, the use of modern farm tools and fertilizers are mostly used to increase agricultural production on the same farmlands in seasons within the year because it is the only region in the world with the highest proportion of forest area (96%) with long-term management plans [
19]. However, forests in European countries suffer from insect pests and pathogens that destroy large forest areas; for instance,
Noediprion sertifer destroy Belarus, Georgia, Latvia, Norway, Turkey, and Ukraine European pine [
7]. This notwithstanding, Europe is the only region with the least percentage (<5%) of forest area in protected areas [
7]. Diseases, insect pests, and fires are the key drivers of forest cover lost in most of Europe’s forests [
7].
Although tropical forests constitute only 12% of the global land area, they are responsible for providing 40% of the global net primary production (NPP) with a global biomass carbon of 25% [
21]. Despite the crucial social and ecological contributions that tropical forests provide, they face substantial threats and dangers of D&FD, loss of flora and fauna species due to rising global population, urbanization, unsustainable agricultural expansion, illegal and legal logging, mining, fires, and changes in climate [
18]. Hence, D&FD’s pervasive ecological and social issues will require applying social-ecological networks that link the community-led approach to managing natural resources such as forests [
22].
Ghana’s forest governance has revolved around several policies, laws, and regulations. Until the state-led forest governance and management in Ghana, forestlands were under the customary law administration. During those periods, chiefs were the key custodians of the forestlands under their respective jurisdiction held on behalf and in trust of people who had the user rights [
1,
19]. The chiefs ensured the conservation and preservation of forests biodiversity and ecosystem services through the traditional system and indigenous knowledge [
23]. In 1927 the British colonial administration, through the “Forest Ordinance 1927”, converted some stool lands under the care of the traditional chiefs into “forest reserve” under the control of the colonial authority to save the forests from excessive exploitation of timber resources [
1]. Later, the state enacted major forest polices and key legislations to ensure proper conservation and forest resources preservation. Notable among them include the 1948 Forest Policy, which had the key objectives of protecting forests, creating permanent forest estates, and protecting the environment to maintain ecological balance [
24]. Then, the 1951 Forests Ordinance was promulgated to protect forests, including the forest reserves [
24]. The top-down forest management structure operated even after independence from the British on 6 March 1957 [
25]. These include the 1960 Forest Improvement Act enacted to embark on forest plantation development and timber plantation and management. After that, the Forest Commission Act of 1960, the forest Concessions Act of 1962 [
25] were promulgated. The Concessions Act, (Act 124, 1962) in particular was remarkable as it sought to vest timber resources and naturally occurring timber trees in the President of the Republic in the trust of the people of Ghana [
26]. Thus, the 1962 Concession Act marks the first-time farmers lost their rights to forest resources in Ghana [
27]. The communities owning timber resources saw the shift as losing their ownership rights to the state [
26]. The Act also demarcated Ghana’s forests and protected areas into different concessions for timber exploitation purposes and determining forest fees, licenses, and timber decrees [
26]. Under the Concessions Act 1962, the Forestry Commission was tasked with the sole responsibility to have the management rights and harvest timber resources on behalf of the state [
26].
The 1974 Forest Protection Decree was to protect the forest and define offences, provide guidelines for the timber logging industry, specifying sanctions for non-compliance, and promoting processed timber export [
24]. After that, the 1983 Trees and Timber Regulations that sought to regulate chainsaw operation for logging, tree felling, and forest protection regulations were established [
24]. Following that, the Land Administration Act of 1984 and the Forest Protection [Amendment] Law 1986, which specifically defined forest offences and penalties, were enacted. The 1990 Control and Prevention of Bushfires Law and the 1994 Forest and Wildlife Policy were promulgated specifically to ensure forest protection and the conservation of forests resources, among others [
25]. Additionally, the Forest and Wildlife Policy of 1994 constituted a crucial milestone in advancing Ghana’s forests and wildlife protection and conservation with the significant involvement of communities, and the restoration of degraded forests coupled with the introduction of market-driven mechanisms to enhance forest resources use [
1,
24,
28]. The Timber Resources Management Act, 1997—Act 547 dealt with timber utilization contracts, applications for timber rights, granting of timber rights, terms of the contract, timber operation management, payment of royalties, charges and other fees, and all other relevant issues concerning timber resources [
25].
Additionally, the Timber Resources Management Act 1997 LI 1649 [as amended] mandates holders of Timber Utilization Contracts [TUCs] to pay at least a 5% stumpage fee as part of their Social Responsibility Agreements [SRAs] to timber-producing communities. The 5% stumpage fee was supposed to provide social amenities, services and other benefits to beneficiary communities where TUCs operate. The Forest Protection [Amendment] Act 2002 was aimed at upscaling forest protection through the revision of forest fines as the 1986 Forest Protection [Amendment] Law which was to deal with forest offences, sanctions, and penalties, had developed loopholes and relaxations [
24]. Particularly, the 1986 Forest Protection Amendment Law could not adequately deal with the key objectives it was intended to achieve as stated above; hence the 2002 Forest Protection Act sought to upscale the offences and the fines as contained in the 1986 Forest Protection [Amendment] Law [
24]. In 2008, Ghana adopted the REDD+ strategy to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, sustainable management and conservation of forest biodiversity, and enhanced carbon stocks. However, the implementation of REDD+ has met several challenges, including a lack of appropriate carbon benefit-sharing mechanisms, weak tree and land tenure arrangements and non-fulfilment of safeguards strategies [
25,
29,
30,
31,
32]. The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility [FCPF] provides grant assistance for supporting Ghana REDD+ intervention [
33]; currently, REDD+ actions and activities operate in the high forest zones [HFZs] of the southern part of Ghana, considered to be the biodiversity hotspots [
34]. The REDD+ strategy primarily uses Ghana’s HFZs for carbon stocks enhancement and emission mitigation [
25]. The Modified Taungya System, established in 2002, is a community-level intervention aimed at achieving the dual purpose of allowing local farmers to grow food crops while caring for trees in the farms [
25]. The MTS scheme is supposed to serve as a win-win opportunity for farmers and local people to engage in tree planting and nurturing in degraded forestlands while growing food and cash crops to provide income and employment. However, [
31] finds inadequate income to be generated from growing food crops under the MTS as a major factor demotivating the farmers in investing their time and resources in the restoration and afforestation processes. This situation threatens the sustainability of the MTS scheme.
The Community Resources Management Areas [CREMAs] intervention was tasked with engaging in actions and activities to achieve a reduction in the D&FD, and promoting sustainable farming practices [
35]. The CREMAs were also tasked to ensure the curtailment of illegal logging, enhancing conservation and management of protected areas and forest reserves [
34]. Like the MTS, the CREMA members also lack the appropriate tangible benefits and incentives, which could motivate them to actively participate in the sustainable management of forest and forest restoration projects [
35,
36]. At the lower levels, CREMAs are faced with numerous challenges, including inadequate funding and weak governance structures [
35]. Hence many of the CREMA members develop apathetic attitudes towards CREMA activities [
25,
35].
In 2001, the National Forest Plantation Development Programme [NFPDP] was launched to embark on national forest plantation acceleration [
37,
38]. The programme comprises the government, private organizations and local communities. The key objectives of the NFPDP include the restoration of degraded forest lands by increasing the forest cover, ensuring increased wood supply for domestic use and market. The rest are to generate employment to significantly reduce rural poverty, enhance environmental quality, and enable beneficiaries to benefit from the carbon market and payment for environmental services and improve food security [
39]. The NFPDP developed a Large Scale Private Commercial Plantations Development [LSPCPD] to implement the above objectives [
38].
In 2012 the Ghana Forestry Commission [GFC] promulgated the Ghana Forest and Wildlife Policy 2012. This policy document contains the laws, institutions, systems and organizations that should be integrated to promote sustainable management and conservation of forest landscapes and wildlife in Ghana [
40]. These Acts, policies, schemes and interventions constitute Ghana’s forest governance journey over several decades. However, despite all these, Ghana’s forest governance is characterized by problems and challenges that have partly resulted in ubiquitous D&FD.
Ghana’s tropical forest continues to face dangers and severe threats of deforestation and degradation. Ghana is currently experiencing alarming deforestation and forest degradation with an annual rate of 2% (about 135,000 hectares/year) of forest cover loss through anthropogenic causes [
34]. There is the need to tackle the underlying factors that drive direct causes of Ghana’s D&FD. Therefore, this review aims to analyse the causes of D&FD in Ghana through a social-ecological perspective to understand how drivers-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) reinforces D&FD. There is a paucity in the DPSIR literature regarding the causes of D&FD in Ghana. This necessitated our aim to use the DPSIR to present to forest policy and management planners to understand the chain of causal links in D&FD, as the use of DPSIR to analyse D&FD from the social-ecological lens is underexplored.
4. Discussion
This review has primarily focused on understanding and describing forest challenges that governance needs to address and the problems the governance system faces in addressing the key drivers of D&FD. The review adopts DPSIR to understand Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Responses from the social-ecological causes of D&FD in Ghana. We were motivated to use the DPSIR approach as studies most conducted in Ghana on D&FD fail to use DPSIR, which provides causal links in the processes. The findings from the review indicate both direct and underlying socio-economic and policy issues, institutions and actors’ issues, and natural and climatic factors constitute the major problems that the governance system is confronted with to curtail D&FD. The review found direct factors such as agricultural expansion, coca farming, legal and illegal logging, illegal mining as driving forces of Ghana’s high rate of D&FD. Illegal logging, in particular, is a major driving force of D&FD. This is consistent with a finding by [
15] in remote mountain areas in the Ukrainian Carpathians, while in Nepal, illegal logging is a major driving force of D&FD [
128]. Equally, agricultural expansion constitutes the key driving force of D&FD, leading to forest habitat loss in the tropical landscapes in Zambia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Bangladesh [
129]. The FAO 2020 studies find agricultural expansion remaining the biggest driver of D&FD [
19]. This implies that direct driving forces that propel D&FD are ubiquitous and not peculiar to forest governance challenges in Ghana.
Illegal small-scale mining should, as a matter of urgency, be curtailed and make those involved go through proper registration and be assigned with proper legal concessions for monitoring purposes. Formalizing their activities and giving them training can equip them to practice sustainable mining, which involves limited open land surface destruction and land reclamation. The government and the banks can help small-scale miners procure equipment that can mine sustainably with less or no open land surface scooping or destruction. Findings indicate that the existing forest policy and governance in Ghana have failed to tackle these direct factors of D&FD. We contend that forest policymakers and interventions often focus on direct factors that propel D&FD without tackling the underlying socio-economic driving forces such as population growth, policy failures and lapses, poverty, land and tree tenure, and benefit-sharing issues. Others include institutional lapses, non-compliance of forest rules, and corruption and climate change impacts. The lack of forest policy and law reforms have perpetuated forest illegalities in Ghana [
31], and our findings indicate the need to improve forest institutions to promote policy coherence and enhance forest compliance, accountability and transparency. For instance, a growing rural population who depend on forests for livelihood opportunities leads to forests resources depletion and loss [
71], while increased population and the consequent high demand for timber result in massive forests resources and timber depletion [
117]. Similarly, studies buttress that high population growth leads to increased consumption, increased resource use, natural resources extraction [
130], and [
131] postulates growing population outstrips common resources. The [
132] associate increase fuelwood use with population growth in Ghana. This is buttressed by a finding, as presented in
Table 4 above. It indicates an increased population from 24,779,619 in 2010 to 30,417,856 in 2019. Also, there was an increase in the rural population from 2,213,131 in 2010 to 13,168,802 in 2019. The increased rural population implies increased forest resources use, including fuelwood and timber. Studies show that Ghana’s rural dwellers use fuelwood the most while also producing charcoal for sale to urban areas [
38]. This necessitated the policy intervention to encourage LPG use by rural forest dwellers to reduce fuelwood use [
38,
117]. However, irregular supply and high prices of LPG made the policy intervention unstainable [
38].
Therefore, there is a need to curtail increased population, especially rural populations, to reduce forest dependence. Moreover, the poverty levels in Ghana’s rural areas leave the rural forest communities no option than to depend on the forest resources for livelihood and survival needs. The government should roll out policy strategies and interventions such as alternative off-farm activities to reduce excessive forest resources use. However, the challenge is that many people find forest-related income, such as illegal logging and mining, much quicker and faster and provide higher returns than engaging in soap making, beekeeping, and gari processing. Previous alternative livelihood interventions have been providing small income facilities to engage in the off-farm activities stated above. Because these interventions have not reduced illegal activities in forest areas, they are not the best alternative livelihood options to reduce forest dependence. The policy intervention that seeks to reduce poverty and the subsequent reduction in forest resources extraction and use should yield more income and economic benefits returns than they would have gained from the forests. For instance, in Nepal, a study showed that forest income contributes 14.5% average rural household income [
133]. A similar study in Ghana can inform government and economic policy planners to initiate measures to provide other income sources while tightening forest laws and rules. Extracting forest resources that degrade forest biodiversity and ecosystem should attract greater sanctions. Thus, protecting forest through sustainable forest management achieves win-win benefits such as carbon sequestration to increase carbon stocks and enhance the collection of NTFPs that do not deplete or degrade forests. Sustainable forest management can enhance Ghana’s carbon stocks and storage potentials to combat climate change impacts that propel hydrological drivers such as droughts that increase forest fire tendencies. Because sustainably managing Ghana’s forest will reduce natural and climatic drivers that bring the high temperature and low rainfall patterns, and changes in the climate system. Land/tree tenure and benefit-sharing issues regarding naturally occurring trees in farms and forests belonging to families and communities should be shared equitably to curtail illegal logging and other forest illegalities. Some studies claim that unfair and inequitable land/tree benefit-sharing constitute factors that encourage forest-fringe communities to engage in forest illegalities [
108]. The inequitable carbon benefit-sharing and lack of tenure security are major factors that drive D&FD in Ghana [
90].
We are of the strong view that until the drivers that propel Ghana’s D&FD are identified and categorized into the direct and underlying drivers through the social-ecological lens, the pressures on Ghana’s forest will rage to affect the state of the forest and have negative impacts and consequences. The detailed analysis and presentation of data from interdisciplinary perspectives and sectors show that no one ministry, for example, the MLNR through its agency FC can wage the fight on Ghana’s D&FD and win unless it involves other ministries and sectors. For instance, the appropriate sector coordination and collaboration among the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations and the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum can reduce rural poverty, provide alternative livelihoods and promote LPG use. However, this lack of coordination and cohesion among responsible ministries and sectors has perpetuated the long-standing battle of D&FD despite Ghana having enacted a plethora of forest decrees, policy, interventions, governance and management schemes since 1948. Also, there is one thing having numerous polices and other, ensuring their proper implementation and monitoring. We, therefore, believe that the MLNR through its agency FC solely responsible and mandated for forest policy cannot do it alone. There is a need for greater inter-ministerial coordination and collaboration to tackle the drivers of D&FD from the social-ecological dimensions. The analysis and presentation of data from different sectors through the social-ecological lens using the DPSIR will go a long way to eradicate activities that drastically propel D&FD in Ghana.
5. Conclusions and Recommendations
Following a comprehensive and critical review of relevant literature that focuses on the causes of deforestation and forest degradation in Ghana, our analysis reveals that Ghana is faced with multifaceted drivers and pressures leading to massive and ubiquitous D&FD. Direct and underlying factors that drive high and massive D&FD in Ghana’s forests include agriculture expansion, cocoa farming activities, legal and illegal logging and mining, increased rural population and poverty, policy failures and lapses, and the lack of appropriate benefit-sharing and tenure issues, among others. Despite the numerous forest policies, laws, legislations, and interventions aimed at governing and managing Ghana’s forest sustainably, the country continues to face the D&FD challenges. To address Ghana’s D&FD challenges in a holistic manner, forest planners, managers, and policymakers should focus on the underlying problems the forest governance system faces in addressing D&FD, such as socio-economic, policy, and institutional issues, which serve as catalysts to direct forest challenges governance needs to address D&FD.
Additionally, the review’s findings indicated the plethora of forest policies, laws, legislation and interventions, implementation and enforcement failures, and lapses due to the absence of appropriate harmonization and coherence forest governance institutions. The review recommends using modern technology systems to monitor high forest zones to detect illegalities continuously. Also, offenders and perpetrators of forest illegalities should be made to face the law without any political, social, or economic considerations and maneuvering. Forest policy intervention responses should intensify agroforestry and plantation schemes to achieve co-benefits to promote rural and forest-dependent people’s livelihoods and enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services to promote carbon stocks for climate mitigation. It is also critical to ensure adequate sectoral collaboration to provide alternative livelihood opportunities for the teeming forest-dependent people to reduce excessive pressures on the natural forests. There is a need to find alternative energy sources to reduce high and excessive fuelwood and charcoal use, which puts massive pressure on Ghana’s forests. At the same time, however, the communities should actively involve and participate in forest governance and management processes to enhance sustainable forest resources use. Forest communities should be allowed to have equal legal access to forest benefits and the right to land and tree tenure security. Farmers should be given the right to benefit from naturally occurring trees in their farms through access to carbon credits under the REDD-plus scheme. Ghana should take appropriate measures to modernize its agriculture to reduce excessive land use through shifting cultivation characterized by slashing and burning and practice land-use intensification. Ghana’s forestland use policies and plans should consider mechanisms to promote sustainable agriculture to promote food security to meet its growing population’s food needs while ensuring environmental sustainability. While we acknowledge the study could have been focused on a particular forest area or reserve to present a clear picture of the social-ecological DPSIR analysis, we believe that this exploratory review will set the platform to apply the methodology in future in specific regions or forest reserve in Ghana. However, this study can be applied in similar tropical forest countries that are experiencing high D&FD rates. Finally, there is a critical need to approach the issues from the social-ecological perspectives through the comprehensive analysis of the drivers, pressures, state, impacts and the responses from various sectoral agencies and ministries to address challenges holistically.