Community Protected Areas (CPAs) are patches of traditionally protected primary forests that contain large portion of Ghana’s biodiversity. They are particular ecosystem that their exploitation is strictly regulated by customary laws. They serve as repository of numerous endemic species. Their protection sustain and strengthen traditional values as well as protecting endangered species, water corridors of stream and rivers, and conserve their rich biological diversity.

In most rural communities in Ghana, CPAs refer to as ancestral forests that are not disturbed for cultural or religious purposes. They are considered sacred because of some historical event that had occurred on the site and believed to be the abode of ancestral spirits. They are accorded strict protection by many forms and their responsibility of protection is vested in the entire community.

According to Yaa Ntiamoah-Baidu et al 1992, the total number of CPAs in Ghana is unknown and their biological composition as well as scientific value have not been studied but have ample evidence of biological values. Data and information on CPAs needed for national planning and policy development do not exist.

Deforestation therefore remains one of the key environmental problems facing Ghana today. It was also evident from the land use trend analysis that, most of the remaining forests outside the statutory forest reserves are mainly patches of community protected areas which are protected through indigenous beliefs and taboos. However, these CPAs are being threatened by increasing pressure arising from demand from agricultural purposes, surface mining, wildfires and infrastructural development.

Today, a number of scared groves are gradually being destroyed by farming activities and bushfires. Some of them have already been lost to infrastructural development. Nevertheless, the remaining sacred groves serve as botanical museums from which a lot can be learned about the original biodiversity of the countryside.

To halt the process of degradation and protect numerous endemic species and ensure their conservation, spatial analysis and ecological stratification of CPAs introduce principles of integrated resource management in capturing reliable data and information needed for sustainable management of CPAs and protect their biological diversity for posterity.

The project will be achieving its goal of sustainable natural resource management through integrated forest management and forge effective collaboration among local institutions to ensure continues existence of CPAs. There is therefore the need to build indigenous capacity to support survey and mapping the groves to sustain the remaining CPAs and prevent erosion of their biological diversity and ensure their sustainable development.

3.2 Project Purpose

The project will:
? Provide long term vision for CPAs that benefit both people and biodiversity;
? Introduce sustainable resources management to the CPAs in order to prevent degradation of natural resources and maintain their biological diversity;
? Build local capacity in environmental protection in order to preserve and mitigate against extinction of indigenous and endemic flora and fauna;
? Mitigate against erosion CPAs and its effects on nature and people
? Bring out the scientific, ecological and cultural benefits of CPAs;
? Allow people, nature-based tourism and local based forest entrepreneurs to thrive and support each other without natural resource scarcity problems;
? Bring clear benefit of CPAs to mankind;
? Promote better land use practices and tracking of forest degradation in traditional communities;
? Promote awareness creation on status of CPAs in Ghana and adopt mitigation measures to control their erosion;
? Promote community-based management of natural resources and increasing shared benefit and poverty alleviation;
? Ensure sustainability of CPAs and conserve their resources for posterity.

Essential requirements for the achievement of the above tasks are the involvement of stakeholders to develop reliable database as a management tool to promote land use planning and sustainable development for CPAs.

3.3 Project Objectives

The overall objective of the project is to safeguard biological resources outside state protected areas in Central Region of Ghana, through identification, mapping and ecological status and importance of CPAs for policy and sustainable development.

The specific objectives of the project are:

1. To build local community in survey and mapping of their resources
2. To develop spatial data and information on CPAs in Central Region
3. To stratify CPAs into three dimensional status based on size (small, medium, large);
4. To classify them base on their current ecological condition (well managed, threatening, at risk)
5. To assess human-induces activities along the fringes of the grove and
6. To map their geographical locations and ecological status and attributes
7. Select 2 significant groves and inventoried their biodiversity importance
The realization of the project objectives would be guided with the Ghana’s Biodiversity Action Plan which provides a broad framework for people to live in harmony with their natural environment with population deriving benefits through sustainable use of the country’s rich tropical biological diversity.