From November 11 – 14 in Akosombo” Ghana” 40 diverse stakeholders gathered to discuss natural resource management” decentralization and development issues in Ghanaian forestry. Participants included representatives from Ghanaian landowning communities” community forest entrepreneurs” civil society organizations” professional forestrers” land administration agencies” and representatives from the donor community.

Among the issues discussed” participants considered:

• Initiatives for improved community-based natural resource management” such as the Community Resource Management areas initiated by the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Comission of Ghana” the Adwenase Community Forest project” and the Modified Taungya Systems of the Forest Services Division of the Forestry Comission of Ghana;
• Tenure” policy” legislative and institutional obstacles faced by these initiatives for improved community-based natural resource management; and
• Models for enterprise in community-forest management and the necessary enabling regulatory environments to support community forest enterprises.

Meeting participants also discussed the role that distored tenure relations” social exclusion” and elite capture of timber resources continue to play in generating and sustaining 15 years of disastrous conflict in Liberia” and thus threatening the stability of the whole sub-region.  Innovative and concerted efforst are currently underway in Liberia to legislate equitable tenure arrangements that strengthen community rights over natural resources.