Dora Cudjoe

MEM-2005 (Ghana)
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

62 Winchester St 2^nd Floor
New Haven, CT. 06511
(203) 530-0032

Research Abstract:
Forest conservation initiatives have met little success in Ghana due mainly to the pattern of extraction and use by the poor rural forest fringe communities. It is imperative to tackle the root cause of tropical forest loss by alleviating poverty along the forest fringes.

The Ashanti Region of Ghana falls within the high forest zone in the tropics. Forest fringe settlers here rely on the forest resources for their sustenance such as in subsistence farming and hunting activities.  Ehwiaa, the study site, is one of the region’s fringe forest towns where wood carving is the main income source. Improved marketing strategies will encourage communally managed forests for multi-products by so doing reducing the pressure on the natural forest and increasing income levels.

Although local and international markets and sales continue to rise for wood carvings the statuses of the carvers do not seem to register this. Hence there is increasing pressure on the indigenous wood resource with decreasing standards in living conditions. This calls for a market based research in this industry to enable improvement.

This project is intended to contribute to strategies of interlacing poverty alleviation and conservation through the market. To achieve this, data collection would be to ascertain wood consumption patterns and the carving community’s effort to conserve the forest resource and then determine the marketing strategies already in place as a means for enhancing the product market and the carver’s income for a more holistic conservation.

Biography:
Dora N. Cudjoe is a second year professional student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He research interest is in Small scale forest fringe based industries: potential for forest conservation and poverty alleviation.

She spent the summer in Ghana working as an intern with the Energy and Environment Unit of the UNDP, Ghana and also collecting data. Her research work was carried out with the direction and support o the Sustainable Development Advisor of the UNDP and the Head of the UNDP-GEF, Ghana.

Prior to coming to Yale she worked with the EPA, Ghana. She also taught in Mathematics and General Science at the Ada Foah Junior Secondary School.

She was awarded a scholarship by the UNPD to represent Ghana at the Global Student Leadership Program in New York. She has been working for the program since.

Dora intends to write a policy paper based on her research in collaboration with the UNDP-GEF, Ghana.

Dora intends to work in the area of environmental/business consulting.