47 



Chapter VI. 

 CONSIDERATIONS OF A FOREST POLICY. 



In considering the forest policy required for the country, undoubt- 

 edly the outstanding factor to be kept in view is the gradual but ever- 

 increasing advance on the forest of the Sudanese vegetation and the 

 comparatively arid conditions obtaining where this vegetation is estab- 

 lished. There can be no doubt that ultimately, if unchecked, the 

 whole of the forests of the Gold Coast will disappear as they have 

 already done in Sierra Leone and Togoland. Apart from the loss in 

 forest wealth to the country that would be entailed, it would also mean 

 the practical disappearance of the cocoa, kola, and oil palm indus- 

 tries as commercial ventures. 



It will of course be a long period before such a state of things comes 

 to pass, but at the same time it is the duty of a forester to look further 

 ahead than anyone else, and it can never be too soon to start such 

 counter measures as are considered necessary to prevent such a calami- 

 tous state of affairs in the distant future. The rate of the destruction 

 of the forest will naturally increase with the population and its 

 turning more and more to pacific methods of livelihood, such as agri- 

 culture. Hence the destruction, important as it is in the present 

 generation, will increase in greater proportion in each subsequent 

 period. 



It is not proposed to discuss the details of any policy here, but 

 the outstanding feature must undoubtedly be the reservation of suffi- 

 cient stretches of the main divide of the country and other hill masses 

 to the north, as the chief barrier to the advance of the Sudanese con- 

 ditions and a protection to the existing forest. At the same time, 

 reservation of sufficient areas as production forests within the present 

 forest area must be made to ensure that succeeding generations shall 

 enjoy the same "benefits, direct and indirect, from their forests as the 

 present generation has inherited. 



The urgency and seriousness of the forestry problem to the country 

 can be estimated from a consideration of the following points which 

 have been referred to in this work and verified by the personal obser- 

 vations of the writer : 



(i) The rivers of the country, apart from the Black and White Volta, 

 rise from the Ashanti plateau and its continuation, which is the main 

 divide running south eastwards into the Colony. 



(2) This plateau and watershed are subjected to a lesser rainfall than 

 the country to the north and south, and are either deforested or rapidly 

 becoming so, with the consequent exposure of the sources of the rivers. 

 (See Chapter V.) 



(3) The northern edge of the forest zone bordering this country is 

 heavily farmed g.nd supports a comparatively dense papulation, 



