Accra, March 10, GNA - A two-day Forest Auditor and Capacity Building Training Course to improve on forest management practices to meet the requirements of forestry standard opened in Accra on Monday. It is also to help eliminate illegal logging through forest management and chain of custody certification.

The training course being organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) through its Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN) is to provide technical support, guidance and framework for forest managers and committed companies in Ghana to achieve certification. About 40 participants from timber companies and officials from the Forestry Commission across the nation are attending the course to build their understanding of the concept of forest management and chain of custody certification.

Mr Mustapha Seidu, Assistant Forestry Programme Officer of WWF, said the fund sought to stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans lived in harmony with nature.

He said they hoped to achieve this by conserving the world's biological diversity, ensuring that use of renewable natural resources was sustainable and reducing pollution and wasteful consumption.

He said the GFTN had, since 2004 been supporting seven timber companies altogether managing over 390,000 hectares (about 50 per cent of total forest reserve concessions in Ghana) and were at different stages of meeting the requirements of the forest standards. Mr Seidu said the WWF had conducted a number of tailor-made training programmes on reduced impact logging, forest certification and auditing in practice and high conservation value forest concept.