Speaker
Description
Ghana’s forestry sector underpins national economic growth, employment, and ecosystem stability; however, it is experiencing rapid degradation due to agricultural expansion, illegal logging, mining, and institutional weaknesses. This study addresses the central research question: What constitutes the optimal allocation of resources for forest conservation in Ghana to ensure both economic efficiency and ecological sustainability? The objective is to understand the current state of Ghana’s forests and suggest optimal allocations for sustainable practices. The study utilised data from Global Forest Watch (2001–2024), incorporating economic valuation and dynamic optimisation techniques. A constrained nonlinear programming model was constructed to maximise the present value of net societal benefits over a 100-year horizon using the Sequential Least Squares Programming (SLSQP) algorithm with Python. The findings reveal alarming forest depletion concentrated in southern regions, driven predominantly by permanent agriculture. The Ashanti and Western Regions alone contributed over 40% of total national deforestation, corresponding to carbon emissions that surpassed 00 million Mg CO₂ equivalent. The optimisation model projects that restoring forest stock to near ecological carrying capacity (approximately 24 million hectares) can yield net societal benefits exceeding $92.5 billion, with significantly reduced emissions and biodiversity gains. This strategy would cut projected annual net carbon emissions by over 80% by 2070, while tripling forest-based carbon sequestration and significantly improving biodiversity outcomes. To achieve these goals, agricultural intensification should be promoted to reduce farmland expansion, especially in the Ashanti and Western regions, while stricter regulations on mining and logging are necessary. Conservation funds should focus roughly 70% on southern areas and 20% on community forest management in the north. Restoration should emphasise natural regeneration, which makes up 96.7% of gains, supported by ecosystem service payments, over low-diversity plantations.