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Mangrove-VR Fallow -GAR
Cocoa farm-ER Farm -fallow land-WR
Plate 5 above: Key fuelwood species and regions used for the fish smoking Plate 6 below: Sources of fuelwood in various land use types
4.2.10 FUELWOOD harvesting, processing, packaging and distribution
Harvesting of fuelwood is done manually with the machete or cutlass of chainsaw. Trunks or stems of bigger diameter trees as well as saplings are cut or felled and sized by cutting into
pieces. Smaller diameter stems are packed into bundleshead loads of variable numbers for transport to market and fish processing centres. The number of stems in a bundle varies with
species. The bigger log pieces are further split using an axe or chainsaw, bundled for delivery of delivered in chunks to clients.
Due to problems of vehicle inaccessibility, the bundles are carried by the head first to an assembly point, usually near an access road or major routes before they are loaded onto
trucks for their destinations Figure 32. Where access is relatively good, the bundles or pieces of logs are heaped at an appropriate point in the forest for direct loading by trucks. In
some cases the bundles are assembled at the homes of the producer or harvestercollector before transporting to points of sale.
Most producers engage in primary processing of the standing trees or off-cuts they harvest before selling to clients Figure 31. The primary processing usually entails cutting and sizing
of the wood into shorter stems for bundling into unitspieces using a cutlass. In the case of large tree trunks, chainsaw may be used to saw the trunk into units usually called blocks. In
the Eastern region the blocks are splits into smaller units and tied into bundles for sale or delivery to clients.
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20 40
60 80
100 120
Greater Accra
Region Central
Region Western
Region Eastern
All Regions
Fue lw
oo d
pr od
uc er
Region
Do producers process fuelwood before sale?
Yes No
Figure 32 Percent distribution of producers processing fuelwood before sale
10 20
30 40
50 60
70 80
Volta Greater Accra
Central Western
Eastern All Regions
Fuelwood producers
R e
gi on
Point of fuelwood deliverysale by producers
Village home Harvest site
Deliver to consumer Wood market
Road sidemiddle mentransporters
Figure 33 Producer fuelwood saledelivery points
4.2.11 Constraints in fuelwood production and remedial measures
