In Ghana and the Sub-Saharan Africa region at large, charcoal is the main source of energy for cooking and heating in urban households, and is likely to remain the major energy source in the foreseeable future. Charcoal supply - production and trade - produces great wealth and engages remarkable number of people across the continent. In spite of its economic significance, the extent to which charcoal income reduces poverty is debatable. This study addresses the research questions: (1) What profits are reaped by the different actors in the charcoal production and trade, and what are the characteristics (gender, ethnicity, age, etc.) of actors?; (2) By what mechanisms (processes, structures and relations) do actors gain, maintain and control access to benefits? ; and (3) How are politico-legal institutions mediating access to opportunities, and how do that affect the legitimacy and authority of institutions? The research questions are addressed in the specific case of the charcoal commodity chain originating in the Kintampo Forest District in the Brong Ahafo Region (the main charcoal production area in Ghana) and going to the three largest end markets in Ghana: Kumasi, Accra, and Takoradi. The study employed commodity chain analysis to quantify and explain profits, and access mapping to trace the social and political economic relations in which charcoal benefits are located.The study estimates that Ghana’s charcoal market generates US$ 66 million income annually. Yet, income distribution is highly skewed among and within actor groups. Merchants make up only 3% of the actors in the market, yet reap 22% of the profit. Producers and retailers, the largest groups in the sector, generate incomes below the national minimum wage. Women dominate the market in terms of number of persons involved, but women and men earn equal incomes at all levels of the market except at the production level, where men reap higher profits than women. Several ethnic groups engage in the market, but people from the Sissala and Asante ethnic groups are the most frequently encountered throughout the chain. The study illuminates how the mechanisms used by various groups of actors to gain, maintain and control access are dynamic in time and space. It shows how significant incomes are derived by those in control of the market while those in control of the resource (the trees) and the production process generate much lower levels of profits. The study documents force, moral economy, social movement and innovation as structural and relational access mechanisms that allow actors to gain, maintain and control access to benefits. The study further demonstrates that chiefs, having no legal mandate in trees, are gaining overall authority in Ghana’s charcoal production. Chiefs’ authority is drawn from long-established customs and social structures in land/tree management, as well as validating of claims by establishing policing groups to enforcecharcoal fees. Chiefs contest each other, and at the same time, contest out the state fromvillage areas. The Ghana Forestry Commission de facto have very limited authority over trees for charcoal production despite their de jure mandate in this regard. The study suggests that improving equity and wellbeing along the charcoal commodity chain requires breaking the interlocking credit labor arrangement that enables merchants to have control over charcoal prices, and improving producers' access to urban markets. This requires more attention on access mechanisms operating on charcoal markets, especially access to capital, information and buyers. The study further argues that legitimacy of institutions stems from the coercive and customary-social ability to control access to resources and opportunities.