A two-day training on forest and environmental laws organised by Hen Mpoano, a non-governmental organization, has ended in Takoradi.
Attended by Police prosecutors, Attorney-General’s Department, security agencies, community-based organisations as well as the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, the training sought to strengthen the capacity of enforcement actors for effective forest law compliance and execution.
Mr. Justice Camilus Mensah, a Project Officer at Hen Mpoano, speaking on a project review on ‘Strengthening Environmental Law Enforcement in Forestry Crime’, explained that there are two forest reserves in the Takoradi Forest District: The Cape Three Point Forest Reserve (CTPR) and Subri Forest Reserve.
He said despite the ecological importance of these two, they are increasingly threatened by human activities.
At Cape Three Point, for instance, he said the rubber plantations have taken some of the boundaries of the forest reserve, as he admitted that farms were expanding and have taken over the forest, while illegal mining activities, logging and hunting of wildlife are still going on persistently.
He said about 12,372 hectares have been converted to plantation in the Subri Forest Reserve.
Mr. Mensah mentioned that as part of efforts to combat such illegal activities in the forest, Hen Mpoano, with funding support from the Global Forest Watch Small Grant Fund, is implementing the ‘Strengthening Environmental Law Enforcement in Forestry Crime’ project.
“The project had the overall goal of integrating criminal justice into the forest monitoring and enforcement of the Takoradi Forest District. Global Forest Watch project has successfully built the forest monitoring capacity of communities and forest managers to reduce deforestation in the Takoradi Forest District through enhanced community-based monitoring,” he said.
He added that although the criminal justice system had been used to combat illegal logging and mining in the two forest reserves, it has been irregular, limited and ineffective due to limited law enforcement budgets, corruption, lack of political will and inadequate knowledge of the actors.
According to him, most forest crimes that went to the courts were dismissed for lack of prosecution or poor preparation of cases.
In the last two years, he said over 20 different people have been arrested but none of the cases were prosecuted because the responsible people along the prosecutorial chain, such as the Police, were not abreast with the environment and the forest laws.
“Sometimes, people who are supposed to write or produce a docket do not have the right language to convince a judge that the case is important and that the case should be handled with priority. So, most of the cases go but they do not get any punitive punishment to deter others from doing the same,” he stated.
Hence, he said it was expedient that enforcement of the forest laws ensured that all actors in the enforcement chain have adequate knowledge of the laws of the environment.
Mr. Mensah advocated for the establishment of an environmental court, where cases of environmental crimes, such as illegal mining, would be heard.
“Such a move would go a long way to strengthen environmental law enforcement and reduce the high incident of environmental crimes in the society,” he added.
Kwabena Boakye Acheampong (Esq) of the Legal Unit of the Wildlife Division, who took participants through the Wildlife Conservation Regulation, mentioned that a new Wildlife Bill has been presented to Parliament for consideration.
While he stressed that the new bill would be punitive enough, he also encouraged the participants to read widely to become conversant with the laws to be able to effectively enforce them.
He observed that reserves in some parts of the country are under threat because of destruction by some people.
“We are losing our forest state, we are incoherent in terms of where we started and where we are going; we should change our attitude to be able to protect our resource base!” he advised.
Mr. Balletey Gomey, a Senior Programme Officer at Hen Mpoano, said the organisation will collaborate with all relevant agencies in the protection of the forest reserve.
