The Demand and Supply Patterns of Timber at the Domestic Market in Ghana

Abstract

Chainsaw milling continues to thrive with regular timber delivery for domestic timber market to meet the needs of consumers. It is largely recognized as a major challenge for sustainable forest management, hence very exigent to obtain and maintain reliable data for planning and for informed policymaking in the forestry sector. This paper aimed at determining the size of the domestic timber market in Ghana. The country was zoned into five and five survey teams were raised, collected the data within the same period for 14 days simultaneously. Data collection was through structured questionnaires and personal interviews. The study revealed that the total annual national projected stock volume of timber was estimated as 2,513,428.9 m3 of which 1,532,199 m3 was consumed. A total of 108 domestic timber markets were identified nationwide and categorized into small, medium and large based on the estimated number of sheds per market. The number of timber merchants, 1157 and timber trade associations, 55 were surveyed in the ten regions. The main sources of timber supply were bush cut and sawmill of which the percentages of the monthly timber supply with respect to the national monthly volume were 72% and 28% respectively. Major timber products identified were beams, boards and lumber. The number of dimensions recorded from the three timber products was 194 and 99 timber species were identified with six of the species available in all the 10 regions of Ghana. The stock volume of the first 10 dominant species on the domestic market constituted 72% of the total national volume stocked.