Ghana’s Forestry Commission has established ten permanent camps for armed forest guards, responding to a wave of illegal mining that has destroyed thousands of hectares of protected forest and left dozens of staff dead or injured. That is according to the International Tropical Timber Organization’s Tropical Timber Market Report, which draws on first-quarter figures from the country’s Timber Industry Development Division.
The move follows findings that almost 9,000 hectares across 45 reserves and a national park had been damaged by illegal mining, with attacks on forest staff intensifying over recent years. The report noted that 23 Wildlife Division staff have been killed or maimed since 2017, whilst 34 Forest Service Division officers were injured in the past five years.
Seven of the camps sit in the Ashanti Region at the Offin Shelterbelt, Apapraman and Oda River reserves, whilst the remaining three are in the Western Region at the Subri River Reserve. Checkpoints have also been established at Buru, Kintampo and Maluwe near Wa.
Set up under a partnership between the United Kingdom government, through its Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, and the Ghana government, the camps are aimed at strengthening forest governance and curbing encroachment. The Forestry Commission said the bases marked a shift from solitary guard operations to team-based deployment, signalling a “stronger commitment to ending illegal mining, illegal logging and other forest crimes.”
The enforcement drive comes as Ghana’s overall wood exports fell in the first quarter of 2026, with volume down 16 per cent to 48,532 cubic metres and value down 20 per cent to EUR 21.96 million. The country earned EUR 27.50 million from wood exports in the same period of 2025.
Air and kiln-dried sawnwood, plywood and billets accounted for more than 90 per cent of the total export volume of the eleven products shipped over the quarter, equal to 43,942 cubic metres. Export volumes for air-dried sawnwood, kiln-dried sawnwood and billets fell 26 per cent, 24 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively.
Plywood bucked the trend, with export revenue more than doubling to EUR 3.498 million, up 119 per cent year on year. Regional buyers took 53 per cent of those receipts, worth EUR 1.865 million, whilst overseas markets accounted for the rest.
An updated climate framework is also in preparation, with Ghana costing its revised emissions pledges for 2025 to 2035 at US$53.3 billion. The plan aims to cut emissions by 71 per cent over the decade, with nature-based measures including an expanded Cocoa Forest REDD+ Programme.
Communities on the forest fringe, meanwhile, see little of the timber trade’s earnings beyond Social Responsibility Agreements, which channel 5 per cent of stumpage fees into local development. The Forestry Commission’s Timber Validation Department counted 447 such agreements, worth GHS 4.52 million, as of May 2026.
