Ghana had over 10 million Ha of forest cover at the beginning of the 20th century which dwindled to about 1.2 million Ha at the close of that century. The main threats to forests are unsustainable slash and burn agriculture or shifting cultivation for food and cash crop production, excessive logging, mining and bushfires. The threats are severest on off-reserve forests where forest cover is disappearing at an alarming rate.
This project is located in the Moist Evergreen Forest zone of Western Region of Ghana and has the objective of assessing the abundance and distribution of Thaumatococcus danielli (a non-sugar natural sweetner) and other Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). The project will explore the potentials for cultivating the plant in the under-storey of cocoa and rubber plantations, as an additional income source.
The project has develop the first stock assessment for an NTFP in West Africa, meaning in those particular forest reserves we know where the plants occur and their state, and can thus develop a sustainable harvest programme. Extraction and purification of the sweetner has been completed