Ankasa-Tano Community Forest Project
Community Resource Management Areas (CREMA)
Rural communities depend on the health of the rainforest for their livelihood, so it is imperative that environmental monitoring and conservation must be implemented at the local level. Therefore, it is crucial that local people have the understanding, skills, and economic incentives to manage their resources in ways that sustain natural ecosystem processes.
The Wildlife Division of the Ghana Forestry Commission is currently utilising CREMAs as the primary institutional mechanism for implementing collaborative sustainable natural resource management outside protected areas in Ghana.
The CREMA is regulated through the development of a constitution, bylaws and natural resource management plan which are created by the CREMA committees composed of elected community members, who work with the Wildlife Division and District Assembly to formulate the CREMA constitution, bylaws and natural resource management plan for each area.
Following approval, the communities will receive a Certificate of Devolution, giving them the authority tosustainably manage their land and to apprehend illegal miners, bushmeat hunters and chainsaw operators.
WAPCA has been working with the twelve communities that surround the Kwabre Forest to create a federated Conservation Resource Management Area (CREMA). All members of the twelve communities were asked to vote and 32 individuals were elected to sit on the Community Resource Management Committee (CRMC) as representatives of their community. The CREMA drafted its own constitution and bylaws which have been submitted to the District Assembly for their approval. The CREMA has been operating successfully, holding regular meetings to discuss issues, participating at training workshops and effectively distributing fines and seized materials back to the communities.
