Introduction
The Kakum National Park, located in the Central Region of Ghana, is renowned for its lush rainforest and canopy walkway. It draws thousands of tourists each year, contributing significantly to the local and national economies.1 It was established in 1931 by the British colonial administration as a forest reserve.2 The park is surrounded by 46 communities with diverse ecosystems comprising exotic flora and fauna,3 and hosts one of Africa’s highest and longest canopy walkways that is suspended above the forest’s second layer with an elevation between 135 meters to 250 meters.4 The park was developed as an ecotourism attraction in 1993 with the development of the canopy walkway. These developments significantly hampered the livelihoods of the local people, fueling incessant conflict between them and the park management, namely the Ghana Heritage Conservation Trust and Forestry Commission.5 Over the years, the conflict has grown in scale, particularly in communities bordering the park, including Abrafo, Mfum, Twepease, and Mesomagor. The GHCT is responsible for managing the tourism-related activities in the park, while the Forestry Commission is the body mandated by law to preserve and conserve the park as a forest reserve.
The park has been a source and site of complex natural resource conflict, impacting the natural resources and management of the park, tourists, and local communities around the park. The conflict has persisted over the years and is further escalating, thereby threatening the sustainability of the park, tourism, and associated livelihoods. Consequently, my SSRC’s APN-funded project was aimed at understanding the causes and consequences of tourism-related natural resource conflict in the park and proposing strategies for achieving sustainable peace. The study involved desk research, fieldwork, including in-depth interviews with a range of stakeholders, including residents, chiefs, and park authorities, namely the GHCT and Forestry Commission.
Causes of the conflict
Based on the findings of the study, the conflict is underpinned by a number of causes. The development of tourism in the park and the associated increasing inability of the residents to have access to land for livelihood activities such as farming, hunting, and gathering of forest products, is one of the causes of the conflict. Despite the increasing population of the communities around the park, they are unable to expand their farmlands, and young people are also unable to obtain land for farming. This situation has given rise to frequent confrontation between the residents and the park management, thereby fuelling the conflict. These confrontations are occasioned by disputes over land, which is contested between the communities and the park management. While the community claims ownership of some portions of land, the park management asserts that these lands belong to the park. Unlike other national parks in Ghana where the park management negotiates with the chiefs (representatives of the communities) and compensates the community for the acquired lands, no such negotiations or compensation is known to have been paid to the chiefs in the case of the Kakum National Park.
Furthermore, the conflict is underpinned by different interests amongst the stakeholders. While the park management prioritise conservation and visitor satisfaction, the residents are interested in issues affecting their livelihoods. Historically, the residents have constructed their livelihoods, including hunting, farming, and harvesting of medicinal plants around the park. With the declaration of the park as a forest reserve and the subsequent development of tourism, the residents were banned from accessing the park for any kind of livelihood activity. This has resulted in confrontation with the park management.
The unequal sharing of benefits from tourism is also another cause of the conflict. The communities receive little of the tourism revenue from the park. Currently, there is no arrangement to commit a portion of the tourism revenue for community development. Therefore, the communities do not benefit directly from the proceeds of tourism that solely accrue to the park. Instead, the revenues from tourism are transferred to the central government treasury. Nonetheless, the park sometimes undertakes some corporate social responsibility activities in the communities, including donation of hospital beds and bedsheets, roofing materials for schools, and occasional cash donations to the chiefs.
Another cause of the conflict relates to the lack of alternative livelihood initiatives in the communities. During the engagements with the communities that preceded the development of tourism in the park, the communities were promised alternative livelihoods in exchange for their support for the tourism project. This was also meant to compensate the local people for denying them livelihood opportunities in the park. Nonetheless, these alternative livelihood initiatives have not been provided. In instances where such initiatives have been provided in the past, they were poorly designed and implemented, leading to their collapse.
The consequences of conflict
The conflict has a number of consequences that impact almost every aspect of the lives of the residents, as well as the operations and sustainability of the park. These consequences include increased poverty, rural-urban migration, increased food insecurity, and communal clashes. Regarding poverty, the conflict has limited the opportunities for the residents to expand their farmlands because of the restrictions imposed by the management of the park. Similarly, there is little space for local people to be employed or engage in economic activities linked to the tourism industry. As revealed in the findings, these limited economic opportunities have increased the poverty among the inhabitants of communities that share a common boundary with the park.
The inability of youth to access land for farming, along with the lack of economic opportunities, results in hopelessness among the inhabitants of the communities. For instance, in describing their plight, a resident of one of the communities (Twepease) remarked that: “The situation is such that a lot of young people migrate to the big towns in search of jobs. One of my friends left for Cape Coast last week because his father’s land is small, but his father has five children. So, the farm is too small for them. He is the fourth child, and he has been trying to get land to cultivate his own cocoa, but this has not been possible. He cultivated his cocoa on a piece of land on the fringe of the park. The park authorities have arrested him twice over that land. Eventually, they even destroyed the farm. I am equally thinking of leaving for Accra because right now I can’t get land to start my own farm. We don’t even get to sell to the tourists because they don’t come to this community.”
In addition, the conflict has also increased the food insecurity situation in the communities. The limited opportunities for the local people to expand farmlands, as well as the lack of alternative livelihoods, have made it difficult for some households to meet their daily feeding requirements. A chief of one of the communities (Mfum) lamented that: “I am aware that some of my people find it difficult to feed their households. Because they can’t expand their farmlands they don’t earn that much to feed. Also, the tourists don’t come to this community and so our people don’t have the opportunity to sell to them to make a living. The quantity of food cultivated has not increased but the population is increasing.”
Lastly, communal clashes are another consequence of conflicting claims over land. c Due to the inability of the local people to acquire additional farmlands, they encroach on neighboring farmlands belonging to other people, often leading to claims and counterclaims over the boundaries and ownership of such contested farmlands. Such conflicts have adversely affected community cohesion. This view is summarised in the frustration of the chief of Mesomagor (a community next to the park) when he indicated that: “There is now a lot of misunderstandings emanating from the conflict. As the chief, I am supposed to resolve all disputes, and there has been an increase in disputes involving claims over land amongst the residents. This is because the park is fighting with us over land, and so our people are not able to expand their farmlands. Therefore, the farmers keep encroaching on each other’s lands in their quest to expand their farms. Recently one farmer had threatened to kill another farmer because that farmer has encroached on his farmland. It escalated to the family level, where the families of the two farmers got involved in the altercation. I had to step in to ensure it did not escalate further and returned the farmland to the rightful owner.”
Pathways to sustainable peace
Peace is essential to ensuring the sustainability of nature and the wellbeing of all parties. There is a need to adopt a stakeholder perspective to inclusive peacebuilding to ensure that the concerns of all stakeholders are addressed. These stakeholders include the residents of the communities next to the park, the chiefs who are the traditional rulers and custodians of communal lands, and local assembly men/women who are the elected representatives of the people. Others include the GHCT officials, who are the managers of the ecotourism project in the park, and the Forestry Commission, which is mandated by law to preserve and conserve the park. The local assembly, which is the local government unit and representative of the central government, is also a key stakeholder. Such a consultative and inclusive peacebuilding process should be guided by the principles and values of indigenous peacebuilding. The indigenous framework for peacebuilding draws on traditional, social, and cultural practices that emphasize restorative justice based on community-based processes.[v] This is better placed to achieve peace because it involves all stakeholders in a conflict, provide them access to a space to voice their demands, resolves their differences, and enables them to co-create peace. Also, it is rooted in local social structures and environmental knowledge, adapting in response to evolving challenges, and consistent with the communities’ perspective of peacebuilding. This ensures that local communities, who have long been passive actors, become active participants in the peace-making process and thus guarantee success.
Additionally, peacebuilding efforts should provide alternative livelihoods for the inhabitants of local communities close to the park. This can be achieved by providing them with sustainable alternative livelihoods that can leverage on tourism development in the park. Examples of local alternative livelihood opportunities include the creation of new products such as farm tourism, cultural tours involving locally-based guides, educators and artists, providing opportunities and spaces for ecolodges in the communities that are owned and operated by local people, promotion of traditional food and beverage outlets, as well as the formation of conventional entertainment groups and souvenir/craft making cottage industry. Such initiatives will provide local communities with livelihood options, rather than living off the natural resources of the park.
To promote reconciliation within communities, the chiefs should establish a standing committee comprising the chiefs and elected local representatives of the people. This committee will adjudicate in cases regarding encroachment on farmlands and associated issues and, where necessary, return such lands to their rightful owners. To ensure reconciliation and peace between communities and park management, a conflict resolution and management committee should be constituted to handle cases involving the communities and the park authorities. This committee could comprise elected local government representatives and park authorities. Incidents of land disputes, wildlife-human conflicts, and crop losses should be addressed and mediated by this committee, and individuals should be compensated for the loss of land, economic trees and crops when necessary. Similarly, this committee should be tasked with handling similar cases in the future. Additionally, the park authorities should dialogue with the leadership of the communities (chiefs and elected representatives of the people) to agree on a percentage of the proceeds of the park that should be retained for direct community development projects. The committee described above should be tasked with deciding the development projects that should be prioritised in each community after engaging and consulting with community members.
Endnotes
- Amoah, M., & Wiafe, E. (2012). Livelihoods of fringe communities and the impacts on the management of conservation area: the case of Kakum National Park in Ghana. International Forestry Review, 14(2), 131-144.
- Appia-Opoku, S. (2011). Using protected areas as a tool for biodiversity conservation and ecotourism: A case study of Kakum National Park in Ghana. Society and Natural Resources, 24(5), 500-510.
- Binlinla, J. K., Voinov, A., Oduro, W. (2014). Analysis of human activities in and around protected areas (Pas): Case of Kakum conservation area in Ghana. International Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation, 6(7), 541-554.
- Dakwa, K., Monney, K., & Attuquayefio, D. (2016). Raid range selection by elephants around Kakum Conservation Area: Implications for the identification of suitable mitigating measures. International Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation, 8(2), 21-31.
- Randazzo, E. (2021). The local, the ‘indigenous’ and the limits of rethinking peacebuilding. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 15(2), 141-160.
