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The paper examines the viability of community forestry and how community participation affects the effectivenessof forest resource security and management. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques with stakeholders’observations and perceptions of managers’ responses to major threats of forest commons were employed in thisstudy. The paper establishes forest security through comparative analysis and discourse of solely governmentmanagement intervention, solely community (private) management intervention and government-communitypartnership for forest management arrangements which are occurring in the Offinso Forest District of Ghana.The paper concludes that, community involvement in forest management interventions delivers better protectionof forest commons; and the extent and autonomy of local community to participate actively in forest resourcemanagement significantly influences resilience against threats of forest commons. Hence, stronger communityparticipation enhances the effectiveness of forest security efforts. Nevertheless, viability of communityparticipation to deliver effective forest resource security is influenced by adequacy of resources in support ofcommunity forestry, empowerment and sense of ownership of communities for forest common management.

This paper provides insights into the current socioeconomic and biophysical state of the Volta Delta, Ghana. We employed non-survey methods, notably the Flegg Location Quotient (FLQ) method of regionalization and construction of tables to develop environmentally extended input-output (IO) model for comparing the economic characteristics of the Volta Delta and the rest of the country. The main sources of data for doing the regionalization were District Analytical Reports. Results from the study indicate that the agricultural sector, trade and transport activities are much predominant in the delta than in the non-delta region. However, employment in services of public administration, financial and insurance, construction and crop production is higher in the non-delta than in the delta region. From a gendered perspective, the embodied work of women in the delta is high in services and manufacturing sectors, but less predominant in agriculture and fishing (compared to the males’ participation). Overall, the delta is found to be a net importer (embodied in goods and services from other regions, higher than in exports) of all the economic metrics used in the study, including agricultural land use, employment, energy and CO2 emissions.Keywords: Economic activities; Volta delta; Non-delta; Land use; Employment; Sector productions; Ghana