Same problem, conflicting ‘truths’: rethinking the missing links in forest degradation narrativization in Ghana

Abstract

This paper uses narrative analysis drawing on secondary data from policy documents, reports, and academic literature to examine contemporary discourses on forest degradation in Ghana. Situating the analysis within science and policy-making, we identify the actors, corresponding storylines, and demonstrate how the knowledge produced shapes forest policy. We find that, external voices dominate forest degradation narrativization in Ghana. Amid conflicting statistics on the extent and rate of forest loss, local farmers are tagged as both villains and victims of degradation to which prescriptive technocratic solutions preoccupied with merely replacing trees are prioritized while neglecting underlying poverty and indigenous knowledge systems

Keywords:

• Narrative analysis
• forest degradation
• environmental narratives
• forest policy
• Ghana: carbon forestry
• sub-Saharan Africa

Notes

1. the notion that ‘a spiral of over-population and consumption as inevitably leading to forest cover lost and hence to global environmental crises’ (Adger, Benjaminsen, Brown, & Svarstad, 2001, p. 687).

2. The view of biodiversity management advanced by dominant institutions notably the World Bank and main northern environmental NGOs (including the World Conservation Union, World Resources Institute and World Wildlife Fund) and supported by G-7 countries (Escobar, 1998, p. 56).