Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
tindamba
performs purely spiritual or religious functions over land. The local
people have free access to land through their chiefs and heads of clans and fami-
lies. Strangers, outsiders, or non-community members may have access by grants,
which, traditionally, require only token recognition of the granting authority by a
presentation of kola nuts and farm produce.
In Nyorigu-Binguri-Gore where the institution of chieftaincy is much less
developed, the chiefs have virtually no control over land. The land is held and
controlled on behalf of the community of owners by clans and families who do
so under the spiritual oversight of a
tindana
. Through the custodians, access to
land is granted to members of the community owning it, and to others upon a
token offer as in the case of Bongnayili-Dugu-Song.
Thus, traditionally, access to land is achieved in two ways in all the sites.
The first, the most fundamental, is based on kinship. It involves no payment,
since the kin or members of the family owning the land enjoy free usufruct.
The second is grants by groups owning land, which, typically, involve payment
in cash or kind, either token or substantial. It, thus, is by contract (customarily
unwritten) between landlord and tenant. However, access to land may be
gained through the modern government, which has powers for compulsory
acquisition.
Regarding tree tenure, traditionally economic trees are owned in common by
those on whose land the trees occur. Following the imposition of British colonial
rule, the government became the trustees and
de jure
owner of commercially
valuable timber species, which are found almost exclusively in southern Ghana.
Recently, in the post-colonial era, the law that vests ownership of such commer-
cial trees in government is undergoing review.
Mushroom, snails, and other wildlife are generally treated as communal prop-
erty. Usually owners of the land where such resources are found enjoy the right
of first access.
Tenurial practices and biodiversity in southern Ghana sites
Tenancy versus owner-occupied management
In Gyamfiase-Adenya, tenancy, which involves mainly sharecropping and rental
units by migrant-settler Ayigbe farmers originating from Togo and from Ghana's
Volta region, has become significant. Land units farmed on a tenancy basis are
estimated to comprise no less than 50 per cent of the total number of farmed units,
even though the land continues to be owned, overwhelmingly, by the native
Akuapem people on the basis of their
abusua
kinship tenurial arrangement. The
tenants tend to cluster in communities separate from those of the Akuapem
landowners.
