Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade in sub-humid West Africa. Vol 1 (2).

Deforestation and degradation of natural resources have been a twin matter of concern across the globe (ITTO, 2006). The early conservation movement predicted the implication of uncontrolled logging and exploitation of natural resources to include natural disasters, reduction in the quality of life and scarcity of material for the future generation (World Bank/WWF Alliance, 2002, 2003; WWF, 2008). Since the Brutland report and the Rio Conference in 1992, even greater concerns were expressed about the state of the earth. Many of these concerns are traceable to uncontrolled logging, and in many cases illegal logging (Brack, 2009). Concern about the extent to which illegal logging has been contributing to forest loss has grown sharply since the 1980s.