Wood users asked to avoid indiscriminate felling of trees

Trees in the nation’s forest reserves and other stool lands are vested in the state and are managed by the Forestry Service Commission throughout the country.

Wood workers and other wood users are therefore to avoid indiscriminate felling of trees and lumber but to contact district forestry officers for permit, concessional documents and advice to avoid environmental degradation.

The Afram Plains District Manager of the Forestry Services Commission, Rev Jonathan Obour Wiredu, said this when he addressed timber contractors, chiefs, chainsaw operators, charcoal burners, carpenters and the GNA Media Auditing and Tracking of Development project team at Donkorkrom.

He said chiefs and other land owners had no legal rights to sell trees and lumber to wood users to be processed into other finished products without approval from the Forestry Commission.

He said the Forestry Office was ready to assist individuals and groups to cultivate acacia and other fast growing trees into woodlots for the production of charcoal and also assist them to cultivate teak and other timber species for sale to timber contractors.

Rev Wiredu said anybody arrested for felling trees indiscriminately without permit and other documents would be prosecuted.

He said the Afram Plains was one of the major food production areas in the country and needed to be protected from being turned into a desert with the indiscriminate felling of trees and advised farmers to plant trees alongside their food crops.

Source: GNA