Bushfire management, culture and ecological modernisation in Ghana

This article traces the emergence of ecological modernisation in Ghana in the context of bushfire management. Ecological modernisation is seen as the institutionalisation of a decentralised discourse coalition, which links international environmental agencies with national level and civil society organisations. The coalition promotes the need to change backward practices that promote environmental destruction and to introduce management frameworks, based on community organisations. It tends to empower actors who subscribe to dominant environmental story-lines, and marginalise those who do not. This tends to support the generation of simple environmental messages, which frequently do not correspond with the intricacies of local adaptations and debates about changes in the environment and in production. This is illustrated with a case study of fire management in the Bongo district of the Upper East Region of Ghana, where the district authority has introduced a 'no burn' policy. The article argues for an approach to environmental management which creates platforms for rural people to present their specific view points of the environment and encourages them to make informed decisions, based on an appreciation of the points of view of other actors, and access to information, rather than on the basis of the politics of patronage and blame.