49 



Chapter VII. 



THE GOLD COAST FORESTRY DEPARTMENT. 



History of the Department. 



The following Notes are extracted and amplified from Mr. McLeod's 

 " Statement for the British Empire Forestry Conference, 1920." 



It was during the Governorship of the late Sir John Pickersgill 

 Roger, K. CM. G., that the idea of having a Forest Department in the 

 Gold Coast Colony was first conceived, and accordingly, in 1908, 

 Mr. H. N. Thompson, Conservator of Forests, Southern Nigeria, was 

 invited to inspect and report on the forests of this Colony and Ashanti, 

 and to advise as to the best means of regulating the haphazard methods 

 of exploiting mahogany. His report was duly printed as a Parlia- 

 mentary Paper (Cd. 4993), and in 1909 Mr. N. C. McLeod, who was 

 then Mr. Thompson's deputy in Southern Nigeria, was appointed 

 Conservator of Forests, Gold Coast. 



His attempt to start forestry on proper lines by the early intro- 

 duction of suitable legislation was frustrated by the strong opposition 

 of the " Aborigines' Rights Protection Society " at Cape Coast to the 

 proposed Forestry Ordinance. 



A local enquiry into the reasons for this opposition was made by 

 Sir H. Belfield, and in 1912 the West African Lands Committee, under 

 the Chairmanship of Sir Kenelm E. Digby, G.C.B., K.C., which sat in 

 London, " to consider the laws in force in the West African Colonies 

 and Protectorates (other than Northern Nigeria) regulating the con- 

 ditions under which rights over land or the produce thereof may be 

 transferred, and to report whether any, and, if so, what, amendment 

 of the laws is required, either on the lines of the Northern Nigeria 

 Land Proclamation or otherwise," considered the provisions of the 

 Forestry Ordinances in the various dependencies and expressed their 

 views thereon, although they recognised that they were strictly outside 

 the terms of reference. In Section 287 of their draft report, "African 

 (West) (No. 1046) Confidential," printed in April, 1917, their views are 

 recorded in favour of State control in forest administration, as this 

 is vital to the general interests. 



From October, 1909, to the end of 1914, the Conservator of Forests 

 and his European Assistants, who gradually rose to the number of 

 four, made an inspection of the forests of the Colony and Ashanti, ear- 

 marking areas suitable for reservation against the time when authority 



