GHANA: Locals hail EU pact to end illegal logging
ACCRA, 7 November 2008 (IRIN): A long queue of trucks loaded with timber, freshly sawed from Ghanas fast-depleting forests, lines up at Accras Tema Harbour to offload to ships bound for Europe.
No one at the port in the Ghanaian capital knows if the timber delivered by the trucks is legally or illegally acquired.
Customs official James Klutse makes a final check on the number of logs per truck. – My job is simple, to make sure I have the right number of logs. The source of the timber cannot become my headache, he told IRIN.
Up to 80 percent of Ghanas forests have been destroyed by illegal logging, according to the World Bank. The Ghana Forestry Commission estimates that 250 million US dollar in illegal timber leaves the country each year, most of it to Europe, the West African countrys biggest timber consumer.
The Ghanaian government and the European Union (EU) are trying to put a stop to this by signing a mandatory agreement called the Vountary Partnership Agreement (VPA), by which they agree to cooperate and ensure that timber – at every stage of the export process – is properly licensed.
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