GHANA seeks to become one of the major exporters of teak and teak products, Samuel Abu Jinapor, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, has said.
Speaking at the opening of the 4th World Teak Conference in Accra on Monday, Jinapor said the country had introduced a raft of measures to ensure that this vision is achieved, Koku Devitor reports.
The minister said through public and private sector activities, Ghana had been developing teak, a premium timber specie critical for ship decking, construction of railway carriages, door and window frames, panelling, and furniture, to be one of the major species exported from Ghana.
‘Apart from developing the teak timber specie, we are also working to make its harvesting, trade, and use in the downstream industry easy and legally compliant internationally,’ said Jinapor.
He added that this regulatory and promotions would be implemented under the newly-developed Ghana Timber Legality Assurance Regulation under the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade Framework to enhance transparency, efficiency, and legality in timber traded from Ghana.
Jinapor said the country had also developed a Wood Tracking – Decision Support system, ‘an electronic system that tracks and traces timber from source to export,’ to ensure that any timber entering the supply chain from Ghana originates from legal sources.
The minister added that the electronic tracking system would aid the Digital Property Mark and Registration developed by the Ghana Forestry Commission to allow timber companies and loggers to register and renew their property marks from the comfort of their homes.
‘These initiatives have attracted and sustained key private and public sector investments in the forest plantation industry in Ghana,’ Jinapor disclosed.
He therefore, urged the conference to come up with new strategies and initiatives to help countries with high teak cultivation prospects to grow the teak industry to support global trade.
Official records from the Forestry Commission said Ghana had teak resources totalling 200,000 hectares, constituting 70 percent of the country’s total forest cover, and 54 percent of its total timber exports as of 2021.
Kenichi Shono, Forestry officer with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, urged foresters to explore the benefits of teak to help reverse the devastating impact of the global climate crisis.
Kenichi added that, as severe drought tightened its grip on sub-Saharan Africa, teak cultivation and forestry in general could play a role in reversing the trend as the world approached the deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
This is the first World Teak Conference to be held in Africa, bringing together more than 300 participants from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
The four-day conference, rescheduled from 2020 to this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is under the theme, Global Teak Market: Challenges and Opportunities for Emerging Markets and Developing Economies.