Huge swathe of Dodowa Forest cleared to relocate traders, raising alarm among environmentalists

A section of the historic Dodowa Forest in the Greater Accra Region has been cleared to make way for the relocation of traders ahead of a planned reconstruction of the Dodowa Market into a 24-Hour Economy Market.

The move has sparked concerns over environmental destruction, cultural heritage loss, and the risk that a supposedly temporary move could become permanent.

Critics, including environmental experts and community leaders, say the decision sacrifices a vital green space with ecological and historical significance while raising questions about whether alternative sites could have spared the forest from degradation.

Critics say what makes the decision even more contentious is because part of the cleared forest had been the focus of reforestation efforts involving community volunteers and the Forestry Commission.

When The Fourth Estate visited the site, what used to be home to trees, shrubs, and seedlings had been cleared, and the debris hauled away with some building materials on the sidelines of the newly cleared space.

Dr Ebenezer Djaney Djagbletey, a former Director of Operations at the Forestry Commission who led some of those tree-planting campaigns, described the clearing as a setback to climate resilience efforts in the area.

“This is improper,” Dr. Djegbletey told The Fourth Estate. “Globally, the discourse is to contain climate change and associated global warming issues. The solution on the table is that we must plant more trees, not to cut them down.”

He accused the Shai-Osudoku District Assembly of destroying hundreds of tree seedlings planted by him and other community members as part of past efforts to protect a forest that has faced years of encroachment.

Some community leaders, however, are not against redevelopment of the market even though they question the cost of the clearance of parts of the forest to the community’s heritage. Renner Awatey Kwesi Noah, an opinion leader in Dodowa, rejects the choice of location for the temporary market site.

He told The Fourth Estate that while the upgrade of the market is critical for the local economy, it should not be done at the expense of a forest that holds a special place as a cultural heritage for the people of Dodowa.

He warned that the ongoing preparatory and anticipated concrete works in the forest, coupled with the likely difficulty the district assembly would face in controlling the activities of market women, would make it extremely hard for the forest to recover once the traders are eventually relocated from the forest.

Significance of Dodowa Forest

The Dodowa Forest is revered as the site of the Battle of Katamanso, which was fought more than 200 years ago between the Ga-Adangbes and Asantes.

Rich in biodiversity and a host to a waterfall, the forest serves as a buffer against the urban sprawl from Accra and plays a critical role in biodiversity, local climate regulation, and watershed protection. It also provides medicinal plants and acts as a carbon sink in the Greater Accra Region, which is increasingly under pressure from development.

Over the years, the forest has faced steady encroachment, with the recent one being by a developer who, The Fourth Estate learned, claims he bought part of the forest lands from the chiefs of Obosomase, a town in the Akuapem South Municipality of the Eastern Region.

Traders’ position

Traders in the current Dodowa market told The Fourth Estate that plans to reconstruct the market have been shrouded in secrecy and that they only received scant information from the rumor mill rather than official channels.

“We have not been officially informed, but we have heard the rumor. Now that they are moving us, they said we cannot take our containers along, so we don’t know how we are going to work there,” Hannah Titiati, a 70-year-old grocery shop owner, told The Fourth Estate.

Grace Dartey, 22, a fried fish seller, told The Fourth Estate that she has been in the market for over a decade since she took over her mother’s business. She said her experience with a previous relocation attempt about six years ago makes her very skeptical.

“They moved us to the Ghanata Park. They said they were coming to build a market for us. That’s where they built these two buildings,” she said, pointing to two uncompleted structures. “That is the only thing they did.”

DCE speaks

The District Chief Executive for Shai-Osudoku, Ignatius Godfred Dordoe, confirmed that the Assembly was indeed working to relocate the traders.

He told The Fourth Estate that apart from using the period of the relocation of the traders to reconstruct the market, the Assembly was also strategically using the presence of the traders to prevent further encroachment of the forest, particularly by the developer who claims to have acquired parts of the forest from a chief several miles away in a different administrative region.

“It is the reason we’ve walled a section of the forest,” he said

Alternative locations

Critics insist the Assembly had options.

Mr Noah, the opinion leader, points to a parcel of land which had already been earmarked for craft vendors as a viable alternative for the temporary market.

Dr Djagbletey, the former Forestry Commission official, proposes a return to Ghanata Park, which previously served as a relocation site during earlier market works.

Both options, they argue, would spare the forest degradation from which it would take years to recover.

Greater Accra Regional Minister reacts

The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Linda Akweley Ocloo, who confirmed ordering the clearing of the section of the forest, said there were no alternative lands to relocate the traders.   

“Do you know the number of people at the market? That is where we have our astro turf; how can we send our market women there? I came to Dodowa when I was 10 years old. I don’t know where [sic] has been earmarked [for any market]. I know Dodowa very well,” she said. 

She insisted that the relocation was a temporary one for the project.

“We don’t compromise when it comes to government projects,” she said. When The Fourth Estate pointed out the potential destruction when the market is relocated, she dismissed it, saying, “How can we destroy the forest? There is a limit to where the market women will be sitting.”

Forest Commission’s reaction

The Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Hugh Brown, told The Fourth Estate that even though the Dodowa Forest is not a gazetted forest but rather a community one, clearing parts of it should worry the entire nation.

“We have to go to the landowners. If it is their wish that it remains a forest, and it is rather the [district] assembly that is doing this, then it is unfortunate,” he said. “Everybody knows about the history of the Dodowa forest. Some things go on in the forest that have become part of our culture and traditional conservation.”

He said that once the landowners demonstrate a commitment to preserving the Dodowa Forest as a forest, the Forestry Commission would initiate the necessary processes to have it gazetted, thereby protecting it from encroachment and developments such as the one being pursued by the Assembly.

The Registrar of the Dodowa Traditional Council told The Fourth Estate that the council is not aware of the development.

However, the Regional Minister insists the local traditional council knew about it. 

Critics of the Assembly’s decision fear that the relocation of the traders to the forest, touted to be temporary, could become permanent, transforming a protected green space into a permanent commercial zone.