Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A contradiction
However, the preceding indications that tenancy exerts a less favourable effect on
biodiversity and that it may in fact destroy biodiversity should be accepted with
caution because they appear to be contradicted by the findings of a major PLEC
survey of home gardens carried out in Gyamfiase-Adenya in 1998.
Among the food-crops farms invariably operated by migrant Ayigbe settler-
tenants (including home gardeners) through land rotation in the bush away from
the compound house, the PLEC team noticed a sizeable number in which the food
crops grew alongside conserved trees, especially young ones, a practice encour-
aged by PLEC. This unexpected situation was probed further by a closer study of
the floral composition of four of the tenant farms in which trees are conserved
in situ
, and by discussions with the operators of the farms, who may own the trees
either exclusively or jointly with the landlord. Table 18.2 shows the diversity of
plants in one of the studied farms, which is managed by C. K. Avume, a tenant
farmer, at Otwetiri. The crops are dominated by cassava and maize, which are raised
on a sharecropping basis. The 15 species of sapling/tree encountered are used
variously as firewood, medicine, and constructional material.
Tenants cited growing scarcity of fuelwood associated with deforestation as the
principal reason for the practice of tree conservation. Trees are harvested regu-
larly for fuelwood. Other reasons are that trees serve the useful purposes of pro-
viding the following: medicine, supplementary food, wood for carving, fencing,
and house construction, and mortar and pestle for pounding
fufu
, a popular local
meal (Gyasi, 1999).
Contrary to expectation, the tenants reportedly started conserving trees spontan-
eously independently of the nearly four-year-old PLEC campaign for tree conser-
vation in the Gyamfiase-Adenya demonstration site. This finding would seem to
suggest that there is, inherent among tenants, environmental consciousness, which
policy should recognize and use as a basis for biophysical conservation planning.
Situation in northern Ghana sites
In Bongnayili-Dugu-Song and Nyorigu-Binguri-Gonre sites, as in the rest of
northern Ghana, the basic medium of access to farming land is through the kin-
ship arrangement. Just as in southern Ghana, through this arrangement members
of the land-owning group enjoy free usufruct. Others may be granted farming
rights, but payment, if any, is only token, unlike the practice in southern Ghana,
which involves high tenancy fees.
In Bongnayili-Dugu-Song and Nyorigu-Binguri-Gore, because tenancy is not
very well developed, it can hardly be expected to have a profound impact on the
biodiversity. But certain other tenurial aspects appear to do so. They include those
