The review, published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, was conducted by Samuel Adeyanju of the University of British Columbia and colleagues in Canada, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. The team searched Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar in November 2025, retrieving 667 peer-reviewed articles and screening them through a three-stage process managed in the systematic review platform Covidence. After deduplication and full-text assessment, 34 articles met the inclusion criteria, comprising 75 case studies across 24 CREMAs. The researchers deliberately avoided AI tools for the interpretive work, manually reviewing 111 full-text articles, and used Microsoft Copilot only to streamline data retrieval and visualization, following the RAISE recommendations for responsible AI use in evidence synthesis.

What they found first was a problem with the evidence itself. Research attention is heavily concentrated: the Wechiau and Zukpiri CREMAs alone account for 38 percent of all documented cases, with 16 and 13 case studies respectively, while 18 of the 24 CREMAs were represented by one to three studies each. Most well-studied sites were established before the formal CREMA framework and later folded into it, becoming internationally recognized model sites that attract disproportionate research funding and scrutiny. The authors warn that this geographic bias risks misrepresenting the state of community conservation nationally, potentially leading to flawed policy decisions built on the experiences of a handful of exceptional sites.

A second methodological weakness compounds the first. The reviewed literature is dominated by qualitative and mixed-methods designs, with interviews, surveys, and focus groups as the primary data collection tools. Remote sensing and ecological sampling appeared in only a small minority of studies. Most articles relied on people’s perceptions as evidence of CREMA outcomes, which the authors note makes it difficult to establish causal links between the conservation intervention and the reported results. Only a few cases, most notably Wechiau, provided baseline or longitudinal monitoring data. Publication years ranged from 2009 to 2025, with output peaking sharply in 2024 and 2025, each year accounting for one-third of the included articles.

On the environmental front, the picture is genuinely mixed. The most consistently reported positive outcome is increased conservation awareness, documented across 16 CREMAs, driven by environmental education, awareness campaigns, and local bylaw enforcement. Communities in CREMAs participate in wildfire prevention, tree planting, and reporting illegal encroachment, and several studies link these efforts to reductions in bushfires and illegal logging. Comparative evidence suggests greater awareness in CREMA communities than in non-CREMA areas, particularly where sustained engagement with NGOs and park authorities has occurred. At some sites, vegetation cover, soil quality, and biodiversity improved relative to adjacent areas, and firebreak construction reduced wildfire incidence. In the well-documented Wechiau case, conservation measures have been associated with increases in wildlife populations and species diversity, supported by ranger patrols and reinvestment of tourism revenues into conservation.

Yet the same review documents persistent deforestation, forest degradation, and land-use change across nine CREMAs. Research around the Ankasa Conservation Area showed continued conversion of forest land to cash crop plantations alongside significant declines in forest cover, and similar trends of expanding built-up areas and agricultural land were observed elsewhere. CREMAs have also struggled to control hunting and illegal logging in several contexts, with encroachment, poaching, and trade in flora and fauna persisting despite formal conservation rules. The authors conclude that while CREMAs can reduce certain pressures, they are not always sufficient to fully halt biodiversity decline, and only a few sites, most notably Wechiau and Zukpiri, demonstrate consistent evidence of conservation success.

Economically, the benefits are real but modest. Livelihood interventions such as beekeeping, agro-processing, small livestock rearing, and non-timber forest product commercialization provide supplemental income rather than substantial income transformation. Women are key beneficiaries, particularly in shea nut processing and groundnut farming. In Wechiau, the women’s shea group benefited 1,010 women across all 17 communities in 2009, with a projected harvest value of USD 34,564, and certified organic shea nuts earn women about GHS 30 more per bag than uncertified sales. Ecotourism has generated meaningful employment in only a few CREMAs: Wechiau’s visitor numbers leveled off at 1,500 to 1,800 annually, and by 2017 over 2,000 individuals, representing 22 percent of the estimated 9,415 residents, were employed on a salaried or commissioned basis. But these gains are typically incremental, vulnerable to market fluctuations, and constrained by limited access to conservation financing and continued reliance on external donor support.

The review also documents genuine costs. In some cases, CREMA leaders paid office utility bills and motorbike repairs from personal funds to keep operations running. Restrictions on hunting and forest product access reduced income opportunities for some households, and in one striking case, 30,000 hectares of private and communal land previously used for sugarcane farming were appropriated for the Avu Lagoon CREMA, with less than 30 percent of the original 1980s land area remaining available for cultivation. Such restrictions can adversely affect agricultural production and even drive youth out-migration in search of alternative income.

Socioculturally, the outcomes reflect a complex interplay between empowerment and exclusion. CREMAs can reinforce cultural norms, protect culturally significant species, and strengthen community cohesion through collective action platforms. Wechiau received the USD 20,000 UN Equator Prize in 2008, and infrastructure within the CREMA advanced faster than outside it: large settlements received eight times as many new amenities per community as those outside, and solar lighting programmes installed 60 times more lights per community within the CREMA between 2005 and 2009. By 2009 and 2017, 20 and 42 scholarship recipients respectively had completed secondary schooling, with some later returning as skilled tour guides and research assistants. But the review also documents elite capture, with a small group of individuals dominating leadership and decision-making power in eight CREMAs, fewer women occupying top management positions, and conflicts over ecotourism revenue distribution and alleged embezzlement eroding trust in four sites.

The authors conclude that CREMAs remain highly relevant due to their geographic scope, strategic locations outside formal protected areas, integration with rural development, and growing policy significance, particularly following the Wildlife Resources Management Act of 2023, which gave them statutory recognition. But they argue that CREMAs should be understood as a complementary conservation approach alongside multiple-use protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, not a standalone solution. Their recommendations are pointed: avoid overpromising livelihood benefits during establishment, mobilize long-term diversified financing including village savings and loan associations, empower local actors to enforce rules while ensuring fair compensation and inclusive participation, and establish robust monitoring systems to support adaptive management. For researchers, the call is to expand evaluation beyond northern Ghana and move beyond perception-based assessments toward remote sensing and longitudinal studies. As the broader community-based conservation literature has long suggested, the approach sometimes works and sometimes does not, and the difference lies in design, governance, financing, and context.

Subject of Research: Environmental outcomes of Ghana's CREMA initiative vary widely, with increased conservation awareness in some sites but persistent deforestation in others, while economic benefits remain modest and unevenly distributed.

Article Title: Environmental, economic, and sociocultural outcomes of Community Resource Management Area in Ghana: a systematic review

Article References: Adeyanju, S., Pienaah, C. K. A., Bulkan, J., Ros-Tonen, M. A. F., & Sunderland, T. (2026). Environmental, economic, and sociocultural outcomes of Community Resource Management Area in Ghana: a systematic review. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 9, Article 1961815. https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2026.1961815

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1961815

Keywords: CREMA, Ghana, community-based conservation, CBNRM, systematic review, biodiversity, livelihoods, ecotourism, Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, Environmental, economic, sociocultural