Analysis of the Social-Ecological Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Ghana: Application of the DPSIR Framework

• Published in: Forests Vol. 12; no. 4; p. 409
• Main Authors: Kyere-Boateng, Richard, Marek, Michal V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.04.2021
• Subjects: Agricultural production; Biodiversity; Carbon; Chains; Cocoa; Deforestation; deforestation & forest degradation (D&FD); Depletion; Developing countries; DPSIR framework; Ecological effects; Ecosystem services; Ecosystems; Environmental protection; Forest & brush fires; Forest degradation; Forest ecosystems; Forest management; Ghana; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; high forest zones (HFZs); Land degradation; LDCs; Logging; Mitigation; Population growth; Regulation; Reviews; social-ecological; Timber rights; Tropical forests; Wildlife conservation; Europe; Ghana; Ukraine
• ISSN: 1999-4907; 1999-4907
• DOI: 10.3390/f12040409

Globally, forests provide several functions and services to support humans’ well-being and the mitigation of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The services that forests provide enable the forest-dependent people and communities to meet their livelihood needs and well-being. Nevertheless, the world’s forests face a twin environmental problem of deforestation and forest degradation (D&FD), resulting in ubiquitous depletion of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services and eventual loss of forest cover. Ghana, like any tropical forest developing country, is not immune to these human-caused D&FD. This paper reviews Ghana’s D&FD driven by a plethora of pressures, despite many forest policies and interventions to ensure sustainable management and forest use. The review is important as Ghana is experiencing an annual D&FD rate of 2%, equivalent to 135,000 hectares loss of forest cover. Although some studies have focused on the causes of D&FD on Ghana’ forests, they failed to show the chain of causal links of drivers that cause D&FD. This review fills the knowledge and practice gap by adopting the Driver-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses (DPSIR) analytical framework to analyse the literature-based sources of causes D&FD in Ghana. Specifically, the analysis identified agriculture expansion, cocoa farming expansion, illegal logging, illegal mining, population growth and policy failures and lapses as the key drivers of Ghana’s D&FD. The study uses the DPSIR analytical framework to show the chain of causal links that lead to the country’s D&FD and highlights the numerous interventions required to reverse and halt the ubiquitous perpetual trend of D&FD in Ghana. Similar tropical forest countries experiencing D&FD will find the review most useful to curtail the menace.