Vol.: (0123456789) 1 3 Agroforest Syst https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-023-00930-3 Local institutions, actors and governance systems under farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR) in Northwestern Ghana Samuel Ziem Bonye Received: 3 June 2023 / Accepted: 2 November 2023 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023 Abstract Government’s policies over the years to prevent land degradation have been to promote wide scale tree planting. In many cases, attempts at affor- esting degraded areas have adopted orthodox western conservation approaches for regeneration that yielded low results because there has been limited involve- ment of local institutional actors and their structures. The aim of this paper is to investigate the local insti- tutional actors and local level governance structures that provide the enabling environment for promot- ing a sustained natural regeneration. A mixed study design involving a sample size of 200 farmers in Lawra Municipality was used. Interviews, observa- tion, structured questionnaires, and nine focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted across three communities. The structured questionnaires were ana- lyzed descriptively using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 22 while the interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. The results show that farmers’ motivation for practicing natural regen- eration are attributed to improved crop productivity, provision of household livelihoods including food needs, improved soil fertility, fuel wood, fodder, and poles. Natural regeneration of trees were also found to resonate with traditional management practices in which farmers have maintained indigenous tree spe- cies alongside their food crops on their farms. The study recommends strict adherence to the local sys- tems for self-governance and management, the insti- tutionalization of cross district bye-laws on natural regeneration, and strengthening farmers’ capacity through learning and sharing of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) experiences in com- munities with best practices with assistance from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources. Keywords Local institutions · Governance · Farmer managed · Natural regeneration · Northwestern Introduction The conventional agroforestry systems of parklands in the African Sahelian regions have altered over time owing to increasing human population and weather variations (Raebild 2012). Declining agricultural out- put, land clearance and weather change are worsen- ing the helplessness of fringe local populace in the African Sahelian region (Weston et al. 2015). Besides this, due to people’s reliance on natural resources and climate-sensitive livelihoods (Binam et al. 2015), these agroforestry parklands have become especially vulnerable to climate hazards such as droughts, dust storms, flash floods, wildfires, excessive rainfalls and hot waves (Middleton et al. 2013). Agroforestry parkland systems are mainly cropland areas with Present Address: S. Z. Bonye (*)  Department of Community Development, Simon Diedong University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Wa, Ghana e-mail: zbonye@ubids.edu.gh