Fumesua (Ashanti Region) 1 Oct.,

President Jerry John Rawlings said today measures are being taken to curb the current depletion of Ghana's forest resources. He said at the beginning of the 20th century, Ghana has about 8.2 million hectares of high forests but ''now this has been reduced to 1.6 million hectares. ''The safe limit to harvesting our forests is an annual allowable cut of one million cubic metres and yet we are still exceeding this." President Rawlings said. The President was commissioning three new blocks of offices and fully equipped laboratories, two workshops, an administrative block and 36 housing units for the Forest Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG) at Fumesua, near Kumasi. The project was financed by the World Bank and the government at a cost of 4.2 million dollars under the Forest Resource Management Project (FRMP). Other donors to the 64 million-dollar FRMP are the Department For International Development (DFIF), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA).