Why some forest rules are obeyed and others violated by farmers in Ghana: Instrumental and normative perspective of forest law compliance

Sabaheta Ramcilovic-Suominen and Christian P. Hansen

Forest Policy and Economics, 2012, vol. 23, issue C, 46-54

Abstract: This paper explores farmers' compliance with forest rules in the High Forest Zone of Ghana and the factors influencing compliance through interviews with 226 farmers. Specifically, it assesses compliance with rules that regulate and/or prohibit: (i) felling of timber trees on farmlands, (ii) farming in forest reserves, and (iii) use and management of fire on farmlands. The results are based on self-reported responses about compliance with rules and indicate a high level of compliance with farming and bushfire rules, while the tree-felling rule is violated by many farmers. Compliance behaviour is influenced by numerous normative and instrumental factors, such as perceived fairness of rules, need for resources for livelihood and domestic use, and fear of sanction; but also, by some contextual factors, such as regulatory and socio-economic contexts. In the case of Ghana, efforts to strengthen forest law compliance, in particular the felling of trees on farmlands, need further consideration of the normative perspectives to compliance, and may point towards legal reforms that bring the legislation more in accordance with the norms held by farmers.

Keywords: Forest legislation; Compliance; Rights; Farmers; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934112001505
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:forpol:v:23:y:2012:i:c:p:46-54

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2012.07.002

Access Statistics for this article

Forest Policy and Economics is currently edited by M. Krott

More articles in Forest Policy and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().