Do Forest Values Influence Compliance with Forestry Legislation? The Case of Farmers in the Fringes of Forest Reserves in Ghana

Forest values play an important role in forest management practices, and in the design and implementation of forest policy and the legal framework. This paper assesses the importance of farmers’ forest values and the potential associations between farmers’ forest values and their compliance with the tree-felling rule in Ghana. The results are derived from a survey with farmers, inhabiting fringes of forest reserves in the High Forest Zone of Ghana. With the exception of the forest value for future generations, forest values that contribute to immediate subsistence and livelihoods are perceived as the most important (i.e. environmental, subsistence and economic forest values). These values provide, among others, wide variety of foods, such as wild crops and bushmeat, farming land, medicinal plants, household items such as ropes, lianas and mats, firewood and shelter. Aesthetic and religion-related forest values are considered to be the least important. Multivariate binary logistic regression analysis suggests that farmers’ forest values may to some extent influence their compliance with the tree-felling rule. Economic, religion-related and learning forest values are likely to encourage compliance with the tree-felling rule.