Banner Image: Locals plow a swampland to plant rice Kumgbor. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
By Varney Kamara
KONGBA, Gbarpolu County – For more than a decade, Mary Jusu traded bushmeat in Kumgbor. In 2017, a group of conservation campaigners encouraged her to turn to lowland farming in order to protect the Gola National Park near her village. Four years on, she is now helping to protect the very animals whose meat she illegally sold for a living.
“[It] is better than the bushmeat business because there is no stealing and stress in it,” Jusu, 33, tells The DayLight in an interview, adding she generates L$6,000 from rice and beans harvest, which enables her to support her family.
Like Jusu, Mustapha Jalloh is a former illicit miner in Kumgbor. Jalloh, 48, mined diamonds in this region for nearly a decade. In 2015, he quit mining after he took a security guard job with a conservation group.
“Unlike my security job which gives me a monthly pay of US$130, there’s no guarantee that a diamond will be found at the end of every month,” Jalloh says. “This is one reason for which I left mining. There’s no job security in mining. The work is hard, risky, and full of uncertainty.”
Jusu and Mustapha are part of sustainable livelihood programs aimed at protecting the Gola National Park. They are two of nearly 1,000 inhabitants here in Tonglay and Norman, the neighboring clan that is benefiting from a sustainable livelihood program in the Kongba District of this western Liberian county. The Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia (SCNL) supports the locals with tools, training, and mentorship in a variety of agricultural endeavors. Its overall objective is to ensure that the park remains protected against illegal occupants.
Measuring 88,000 hectares of forestland across Liberia’s northwestern frontier toward its border with Sierra Leone, the Gola National Park is home to a variety of endangered and endemic plant and animal species, including western red colobus monkeys, Diana monkeys, and pygmy hippopotamus. It was created by law in October 2017 and is one of Africa’s most important biodiversity hotspots, accounting for over 60 plant and animal species. However, poaching and illegal mining have resulted in habitat loss and increased vulnerability of wildlife in the area. Liberia’s wildlife law prohibits unauthorized entry into a national but only a few people have been arrested for violation of the law. It is a member of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international treaty between governments, which ensures that international trade in wildlife does not threaten the survival of species.
“One of our primary objectives is to ensure that the people are made aware of the importance of protecting their forest,” says Michael Tarie, SCNL’s program manager, in an interview with The DayLight. “The overall goal is to keep the forest protected while at the same time providing alternative livelihoods for these forest inhabitants.”
“This is part of a broader local and international efforts aimed at driving the region away from its war legacy to a new future focused on conservation and climate solutions.”
Graduates of SCNL’s adult literacy program. The DayLight/Varney Kamara.This fish pond in Kumgbor, Gbarpolu County, is part of an alternative livelihood program aimed at getting people away from the Gola National Forest. The DayLight/Rudolph Gborkeh
SCNL’s swamp rice program involves Jusu and 59 other villagers. Jalloh works with the NGO’s local office here. Several villages are also engaged in fish farming, and about 120 in cocoa production. The Beekeeping section has 247 villagers enrolled, while 110 of them are occupied with groundnuts farming. A total of 205 townspeople are also part of an adult literacy program, while 135 are a microfinance scheme.
“Most of the trainees are catching up well with the new farming methods and skills training programs that we have introduced here. They are excited and upbeat about them,” says Hawa Mohammed, a former ranger of the Gola forest, who now supervises the trainees.
“I am happy because I am no longer going in the bush to earn my living,” Korpo Fiyah, a former gardener in Kumgbor, who felled trees and burned them to make a plot. “The bush work is too hard. It has lots of pains in it.”
The programs are not just about livelihoods. It also involves adult literacy aimed at getting women’s participation in career development programs that will keep them away from activities that endanger the park.
“This will prepare women to speak on issues that affect them in their communities,” says Rufus Boygeh, a campaigner with the Self-Help Initiative for Sustainable Development (SHIFSD) following the graduation of 34 women from the program. “It will empower them and lead them to self-sufficiency and would make them speak out on matters that help to protect their forest and the environment.”
Banner Image: A Forest in Sinoe. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA- More than 150 civil Society actors have ended a strategic dialogue to enhance monitoring of companies’ ethical compliance, and communities’ social benefits across Liberia, using a new tool for such advocacy.
The second Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) dialogue followed its introduction in Liberia earlier this year. Created in 2019 by a host of international nongovernmental organizations, including Proforest, Rainforest Alliance and the Meridian Institute, AFi merges local and international laws, policies, principles, and best practices to create a standard for civil society’s advocacy for agriculture and forest-related companies.
Its objective is to create sustainable livelihoods across communities, including reduction in private sector-related deforestation and adopt strict adherence to respect for human rights and secure benefit for local communities where these firms operate.
Campaigners at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI)—which organized the training, said the initiative is to enhance the work of the government for steps to be taken to improve communities’ social development.
Under the AFi training, campaigners learned how to use the principle and criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)—the bible for oil palm companies—and the High Carbon Stock Approach’s guidelines to track and credibly report ethical breaches across communities, including violations on community social benefits by companies.
“CSOs need to use these tools for their effective advocacies and the tracking of violations,” said James Otto, head of SDI’s community rights and corporate governance program in an interview with The DayLight.”
“It’s a good tool that will help to improve the monitoring of the compliance level of concessions across this country,” said Loretta Pope Kai, executive director of the Foundation for Community Initiative (FCI). “It’s going to help communities defend their rights and hold companies’ feet to the fire.
“We need the technical support to document violations. We need to document and report on these issues in a factual and credible manner.”
Liberia has made substantial progress in the management of its natural resources in a sustainable manner since the end of a brutal 14-year civil war, which ended in 2003. The country began with the reform of its forestry sector a year later. Noteworthy among these are the Land Rights Act of 2018, the National Policy on Free, Prior and Informed Consent and the National Oil Palm Strategy.
The list also includes the United Nations Principles on Business and Human Rights, efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and foster conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+), and the Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA).
Actors said they were pleased to add AFi to their knowledge of campaign instruments.
“I am impressed by the enormity of energy that I see from the various groups here. I think this is going to help improve the ethical supply chain as we go along with the implementation of the framework,” said James Akossad Jr., project officer of Proforest-Africa.
“It’s going to add value to the process of implementation,” said Titus Zeogar of Community Right Support Facility (CRSF). “It’s going to add value to monitoring and evaluation, including quality reporting.”
Banner Image: Luyeama Town in Zorzor District, Lofa County. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
By Varney Kamara
LUYEAMA, Lofa County – John Forpka, 55, a resident of Luyeama, was jailed in August after a townsman from the neighboring Washington Village accused him of terroristic threat over a parcel of farmland between both communities.
“That this small number of people in this village, we only supposed to surround them and kill all of them,” Forkpa Washington, his accuser, alleged that he said after Washington and other men from the village had gone on the land, according to documents from the Zorzor Magisterial Court. “That is the only way the problem will be solved.”
Forkpa denied the accusation, and after a two-month trial, the court acquitted him of the charge.
Forpka’s ordeal is the latest in a 50-year-old land conflict involving Luyeama and Washington Village. The conflict started in 1971 and was settled in 1978. But the dispute reemerged in 2018 after Gayflor Washington, an assistant minister at the Ministry of Education and member of the Washington family, claimed 400 acres of land the townspeople of Luyeama said was outside of their boundary.
Luyeama considers a particular tree as the boundary between them and Washington Village, while their neighbors are adamant it goes as far as Ngaza River towards Voinjama.
“The Washingtons are only taking advantage of our poverty, but we will not allow anyone to come here and drive us away from our land,” said Zayzayboi, spokesperson of Luyeama.
The Washingtons disagree with that narrative. They said they have a 1964 deed bearing the 400 acres of land and was signed by then-President William V.S. Tubman.
“We are on the right side of the law,” said Vorwor Washington, spokesperson of the Washington family. “We are not the ones going around and claiming people land. The Luyeama people are just troublemakers.”
Luyeama accused his brother, Gayflor Washington, an assistant minister for teachers’ education of financing his family’s agitation for the controversial farmland.
Gayflor denies that allegation as well. “The Washingtons are many in America. They are spending the money through us,” said Gayflor, who was appointed assistant minister months before the dispute resurfaced.
How it started
In March 2019, the Washington family had complained to local officials that townsmen from Luyeama had stopped men the assistant minister hired to brush his farm. “This incident is one of several disturbances that had been carried out by these men claiming to be owners of our village,” they said in their letter to Henry Zayzay, Paramount Chief of Zorozor District.
A conference between the parties was held four months after. At the end of the meeting, Paramount Chief Zayzay ordered the parties to stop all farming activities on the disputed land. However, villagers from Luyeama said their neighbors violated the chief’s order.
“We want to bring to your attention the gross disregard for the order given by your office for all parties to immediately stop farming on the disputed land until the problem is resolved,” the Luyeama people told Cllr. Kula Jackson, commissioner for land policy and planning at the Land Authority in a letter on December 28, last year. The town was referencing an earlier mandate from the office of the local land administrator.
Washington Village is in a land dispute with Luyeama. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
John’s ordeal mirrors that of Zubayea Yokoi, the town chief of Luyeama in the 1970s. Yokoi was jailed and fined US$2,300 for ordering the destruction of crops belonging to the founder of Washington Village, according to official records of that settlement. Yokoi did not pay the fine but he and other chiefs agreed to give “two-thirds of the suspected land area was willingly and satisfactorily added to Mr. Washington’s already owned parcel of land.”
But the rivalry between Luyeama and Washington Village goes beyond that. Luyeama, for “Blessing is with you” in the Lorma language, got its name after the community survived a bloody tribal war in the 14th century, local legend says. Henry G. Washington, who founded Washington wanted a plot of land in the area but the townspeople of Luyeama refused due to Henry’s alleged involvement in forced labor. They said Henry used his connection with then-President Tubman to force people to head-carry things long distances.
“Henry used this connection and forced people to work in his village without compensation. I am a victim of the forced labor that Henry practiced here,” James Boigie, an elder of Luyeama, told The DayLight in an interview. “He used to force people to tot living hippopotamus from the… forest to the main road. From there, he would transport these animals to Tubman Farm. This is how he got connected to President Tubman.”
The Washington family denied that accusation. “My father was never involved in forced labor,” Vorwor said. “If these people claim that my father was carrying on forced labor, let them go to the labor court, or go to the labor ministry.”
All Eyes on Land Authority
The current dispute between the old foes has ruined the peace they enjoyed for over 40 years. The mood there was tense, fermenting the kind of anger their current generations have not known.
“We are not living in peace,” says Forka Washington, who filed the case against John of Luyeama. “We are under constant harassment and intimidation.”
“Nowadays, when we see each other on the road, it’s like two enemies meeting on the war front,” says Zayzayboi Forkpa, a spokesperson of Luyeama. “We never used to live here like that.”
Liberia’s Land Rights Act recognizes communities such as Luyeama and Washington Village’s right to their land. However, they must agree to a common boundary. “A community’s claim of ownership of customary land shall be established by competent evidence including oral testimonies of community members, maps, signed agreements between neighboring communities and any other confirming documents,” the law says.
Liberia Land Authorities (LLA), which implements the law, and has been investigating the crisis since it reemerged in 2018, has conducted an investigative survey and is expected to release its findings soon.
Both sides of the conflict are awaiting the outcome of the LLA’s ruling, with neither of the parties showing any sign of backing down from the conflict.
“We are willing to defend and die for our land,” John of Luyeama told me. “We need to stand for our rights to ensure that we get justice.”
Vorwor, too, was not reconciliatory in his comments. “We’ll not be intimidated and harassed to leave our property,” he said. “Our family will decide the next course of action if peaceful settlement fails.”
This story is part of The DayLight’s Land-grab Reporting Series.
Banner Image: Gainkpa, Korninga Chiefdom in Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
The leaders of Korninga A Community Forest spent US$5,275 without the approval of the rest of the community.
They paid themselves US$3,300 Christmas gift and US$7,585 for training
It spent US$1,300 for legal fees but does not say who the lawyer is and what services he or she rendered.
The money was meant for roads, schools and clinics
The chiefdom wants them punished.
By Henry B. Gboluma, Jr.
KORNINGA, Gbarpolu County – Residents of the Korninga Chiefdom in the Bopolu District of Gbarpolu County want authorities to investigate and penalize the leaders of a community forest for allegedly misusing US$50,275 it received from a logging company operating in the area.
The leadership of the Korninga ‘A’ Community Forest received the fund from Coveiyalah Investment Enterprise to carry out the community project. The two parties signed a logging contract in April 2019 for the company to fell timber in the 48,296-hectare forest in exchange for much-needed development. But townspeople from all seven communities affected by the logging operations accuse the leadership of embezzlement.
“They unilaterally used close to US$50,000… with no impact in the affected communities,” said Massaquoi Kamara, who is the chairperson of the chiefdom chair, in an interview with The DayLight. “We are asking the office of the local authorities to take this report, properly investigate and where the fault will be discovered at the detriment of the people, those of you who will be linked must be penalized to serve as a deterrent.”
Johnson Flomo, the chief officer of the Korninga ‘A’ leadership—known across the forestry industry as community forest management body (CFMB)—told residents in a meeting on August 21 that he had authorized US$2,000 on a traditional ceremony and $US1,750 to purchase two motorcycles.
Flomo also said he paid a lawyer US$1,300; US$1,310 for a community workforce training and US$6,275 for another training for him and other members of the leadership as well as US$3,300 for their Christmas gift last year. He said he also spent US$500 transportation to Monrovia and back to Gbarpolu.
Flomo did not name the lawyer he paid neither did he say why he and his team spent additional money on transportation when they had already purchased two motorbikes.
Other members of the leadership deny the fees were paid for those purposes.
“These people acted on their own,” said Dennis Flomo, a member of the community assembly, which is the highest decision-making body in the community forestry. It also approves the community forest’s annual budget and oversees its expenditure.
County authorities placed a stay order on the community forest’s account on the same day of the meeting after Coveiyalah paid US$48,000.
Expression of Pain and Anger
People interviewed by The DayLight in the region, an epicenter of the private use permit (PUP) Scandal of 2012, expressed their frustration over the matter.
“I’m grieving in my heart,” said James Sumo, Clan chief of Gainkpa, one of the largest towns in the chiefdom. “If anybody is guilty, let them be punished and be made to pay our money.”
Falko Yarsiah Reed, town chief for Tawalata Town, said, “Our children are just wasting here, and there is no school. We expect that when the company does anything, the communities benefit but this other report is making us feel bad.”
“Let the law take its course because if we leave them, other people will do the same thing tomorrow,” said William Karmon, a prominent elder in the chiefdom.
“This is the reason while you people (leadership) went through the nine steps that qualified this team to manage this forest. We also put educated people amongst you people, yet, you people have gone against the people,” said Olu Nangba, former commissioner of Bopolu District.
Johnson Flomo, the embattled chief officer of the Korninga A Community Forest reads justifies his spending of logging money. The DayLight/Henry Gboluma
The community is also wrangling over who investigates the leadership. The TheCommunity Rights Law of 2009 with reference to the Forest Lands says Where there are reasonable allegations that a community forest management body or any of its members is mismanaging community forest resources or has engaged in misconduct or misappropriation of the community funds, the executive committee (EC), with the technical support of the [FDA] should conduct an investigation and prepare a comprehensive report.” But Paramount Chief George Sumo—who is not a member of the forest leadership, does not want Austin Kamara, the EC chairman, to conduct the investigation due to his absence from meetings. He recommends the office of the superintendent.
Subsequently, the Superintendent Representative at the said meeting assured the seventy affected communities of the county administration’s swift response.
Making remarks at the said meeting, the Regional Coordinator of FDA, Ruth Varney said the community leadership had performed very poorly.
“Your people selected you to serve them for your children to benefit tomorrow, but you have abused that glory opportunity by using their money unnecessarily,” she said. How can you say you spent the people’s money without their concern on a lawyer? “When was the last time you went to court? “That money was not meant for that. How do you expect us to give an account of what you have done?”
Varney said she would work with local authorities and would stand by the findings of their investigation. “If it means that FDA changes all the team members, we will have to take that decision, to have a new board to work for their people,” she said.
The leadership could face a court trial if the investigation finds them guilty.
Banner Image: The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) donated this canoe to the Barconnie-Harmonville Community Forest to help it conserve its forest. Photo credit: SDI
By William Selmah
BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa County – Since the Barconnie-Harmonville Authorized Community Forest was established in 2017, it has found it difficult to sustain its conservation program. Illegal occupants cut down trees and harvest other forest resources there. Besides, residents find it difficult to survive through other means other than depending on the 123-hectare seafront woodland.
It is against this backdrop that Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) last week donated a fishing net, boat and accessories to the leadership of the community forest to support them in finding other ways to survive and keep their forest.
“Working with several communities, the whole question of alternative livelihood has often come in,” Wilfred Gray-Johnson, SDI executive director said in an interview following the presentation of the items to Barconnie-Harmonville Community Forest Management Body (CFMB). “If you don’t want the communities to access their forests, what is their alternative means of livelihood?” He added that the donation would help the fishing town catch enough fish to eat and sell.
Gray-Johnson further said SDI had plans to give at least 50 vulnerable households funds to repair their homes as part of a pilot project. They all, he said, will receive US$50 each for three months. The donation was a part of a memorandum the nongovernmental organization and the community signed earlier this year. It costs over US$12,000, with the fund from the Siemenpuu Foundation, based in Finland.
Opa Peter, the chief officer of the Barconnie-Harmonville CFMB, which manages the daily affairs of the forest, said the donation was a life-impacting gesture. He expressed hope that it would go a long way in impacting the residents of the area.
Some of the donated items. Photo credit: SDI
Mike Doryen, the managing director the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) urged the community to use the donated items for their intended purposes. “[I] only call on them to tell their leaders to be more accountable for the resources they have received for their people because accountability has been an issue. The resources belong to the entire community, not just the leader,” Doryen told The DayLight in an interview.
As part of activities to enhance their conservation endeavors of the Barconnie-Harmonville Authorized Forest, its leadership said there it had an enormous task of making townspeople understand the rationale behind conservation.
“This idea has never been introduced in our communities before,” Peter said. “Forest management is never easy to work, especially dealing with residents who have commercial interest.
“This area was gradually turning into savanna. Most of the towns in this community now are surrounded by trees. Before then, when there was heavy rain, many houses used to be affected.”
Conservation is a pillar of Liberia’s forestry reform. The country has promised to conserve 30 percent of its forest, one of Africa’s largest remaining rainforests. That process has led to the creation of nationals parks, including the Sapo National Park, the Gola National Forest and the Lake Piso Multiple Sustainable Use Reserve. But challenges mount, including agriculture, mining and logging concessions.
Conservation has also not taken root in communities. Barconnie-Harmonville is just one of few of the 47 authorized forest communities in Liberia that have chosen to conserve their forests.
Banner Image: Iron Ores on their way to the Port of Buchanan. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
PAYNESVILLE – Aggrieved citizens from Nimba County Monday criticized the extension of ArcelorMittal’s mineral development agreement (MDA) on grounds that they did not participate in its negotiation.
Last week, ArcelorMittal Liberia (AML), the world’s largest steel company, signed a US$800 million investment agreement with the Liberian government. The deal, which takes the company’s operational period to 2046, will also see an increase in annual shipment from 5 million to 15 million tons. It agreed to provide 4,000 new jobs, the government announced after the signing.
“We categorically reject and unequivocally denounce, object to and resist any extension of the MDA with AML until AML can demonstrate and prove its compliance with the current terms and conditions of the MDA,” their 12-count resolution read. They cited the Land Rights Act of 2018, which recognizes communities’ rights to land and provides for their participation in the government’s issuance of mining licenses.
Mamee Gongbah, a youth leader in Nimba County, criticizes ArcelorMittal’s new deal with Liberia. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
“We are here to oppose the expansion and extension of this agreement” Mamee Gongbah, a Nimba youth representative said in a press conference in Paynesville. “You cannot be talking about the expansion and extension of new [mineral development agreement] when you still have our people drinking from the St. Johnson River.”
The aggrieved citizens also raised issues with ArcelorMittal’s alleged violations of its previous agreement. They said Liberians had not made up 50 percent of the company’s senior staff, which should be the case within 10 years of its operations, according to the agreement. They said the company had not delivered on promises it made to build communities’ infrastructures, including handpumps, schools and clinics.
They demanded their lawmakers to back their decision to denounce the new agreement and urged the Legislature to reject the passage of the deal. Prince Tokpah, the representative of Nimba County District No.2, received the resolution and promised to deliver it to the caucus and House Speaker Bhofal Chambers.
“We reserve the right to go to court if our concerns are not addressed” Sonda Geepea Wilson, the group’s legal consultant, told The DayLight.
The statement came hours after Gbezongar Findley, former President Pro-Tempore of the Liberian Senate, filed a lawsuit against ArcelorMittal at the Second Judiciary Circuit in Grand Bassa County.
ArcelorMittal said it would respond to the allegations.
Last month, citizens of Grand Bassa County also criticized the company for breaching several clauses of its previous agreement relating to affected communities there.
ArcelorMittal said the group’s accusations were “misrepresentation of the facts” in a statement at the time.
ArcelorMittal exports its iron ore via a railroad that passes Bong County to the Port of Buchanan in the county’s capital. The company pays Nimba, Bassa and Bong—the three counties affected by its operations—US$3 million in social development funds. Nimba receives US$1.5 million, Bassa US$1 million and Bong US$500,000.
Liberia’s largest taxpayer, ArcelorMittal signed a US$2.6 billion agreement with Liberia in 2006 for 25 years. The agreement was the country’s first foreign direct investment following years of devastating civil conflict, which left its economy in shambles.
Banner Image: A portion of former Senator Armah Jallah’s controversial palm plantation in the Fallah Clan of Bopolu District, Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Former Senator Armah Zolu Jallah claims 850 acres of land he received from the chief of Fallah Clan, his uncle in 2016, for a palm plantation.
Residents of the clan did not participate in the decision to give Jallah the land. Now they do not have farmland and are farming elsewhere
Jallah and Domah do not recognize the residents’ collective ownership of the land. They claim the land belongs to their forebears, not the community.
An individual cannot own a community land under the Land Rights Act but Jallah argues he got the land before the law was passed.
The story comes amid a series of ‘elite land-grab’ in Liberia, following an array of sweetheart concessions agreements that have pushed the country’s rural poor further into poverty
By James Harding Giahyue
UNDERWEAR TOWN, Gbarpolu County – Armah Zolu Jallah, the former President Pro Tempore of the Liberian Senate, is claiming 850 acres of the land in Fallah Clan, Bopulu District. The palm plantation he has developed on the land is one of the largest farms in Gbarpolu County, employing up to 150 people before the coronavirus pandemic, according to him.
But several townspeople in the area interviewed by The DayLight did not participate in the process through which he got the land. We could not independently verify the size of the plantation and land Jallah is claiming but it covers nearly all of the land around Underwear in the Bopulu District. Villagers are now in search of farmland elsewhere.
“It (Jallah’s palm plantation) affects Ekki Village,” said David Morris, a resident of the Village next to Underwear Town. “People can’t farm there anymore,” Morris said he and other townsmen would resist if Jallah tried to extend his plantation.
Jallah denies any wrongdoing, saying the people in Ekki Village were “squatters.” “They have no right to be where they are,” Jallah, 54, said in a mobile interview with The DayLight.
Alfred Domah, Jallah’s uncle who approved of his possession of the land, said 500 acres of the controversial land belonged to Zulu Siafa, the former senator’s late grandfather after whom he was named, and 350 acres to Miatta Kamara, his late mother.
“Armah Jallah came to me so that he could plant something so that the community can benefit,” Domah told The DayLight, counter-accusing Jallah’s accusers of being “jealous” of his accomplishments. “Where do the Ekki Village people come from? They are who? They just forced themselves there because that’s government land.”
Not just Ekki Village, people in the very Underwear Town were also not part of the process to give Jallah the land. The town was named after its founder, a native of Kpatawee in Bong County who was often seen wearing a singlet, the local legend goes.
“The situation in Underwear Town is getting difficult because of the land the man took to do his farm,” said Joseph Sirleaf, Jr., the town’s youth leader in an interview with The DayLight. He and four other people were at their charcoal site on the remnant of an afforestation plantation owned by the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) across the Barma River.
“They disregard us,” said David Morris, 75, Domah’s neighbor, who said he had lived in the town for 52 years but was excluded from land matters.
Jallah said there was no reason to get the consent of the entire town as his family own the land. “On land issues, we don’t go around talking to everybody,” he said. “The lands in the Underwear area are owned by our fore-parents. If we intend to do something in Underwear Town, we go to them (relatives).”
Samuel Sumo, 52, the husband of the daughter of the man after whom Underwear was named, accused Jallah of bribing Domah with L$10,000, a motorcycle, and roofing sheets. That accusation was also made by Morris, Sileaf, the people in Ekki Village and other people The DayLight interviewed.
Jallah declined to comment on the matter.
Domah denies the accusation. “Anybody tells you that one is a black lie,” the 80-something-year-old Domah said. “If I bring medicine now, [and] they eat [it], tomorrow you will go bury that people.”
Former Senator Armah Zolu Jallah claims 850 acres of community land in Fallah Clan in the Bopolu District of Gbarpolu County. Facebook/Armah Jallah
Liberia’s Land Rights Act recognizes customary land ownership and mandates land-related decisions meet the consent of the community, including women and the youth (Before it, women in most rural communities were not allowed to discuss or own land). Fallah Clan needs to meet the requirements under the law to carry out land transactions. It has not declared itself a landowning community and does not have a land-governance body.
‘Our Inheritance’
The accusation against Jallah, whose efforts as a senator of Lofa County led to the creation of Gbarpolu in 2001, comes amid a growing number of what campaigners call “elite land-grabs.” A 2019 Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) report found past and current government officials at that time may have stolen 9,000 hectares of land in the neighboring Bomi County. It is an unfortunate tale of a country whose history of concessional land-grab dates as far back as the mid-1920s with Firestone and continues today with companies like Golden Veroleum Liberia.
“Elite land grab is a threat to communities’ land rights, a recipe for land conflicts and source of internal division within communities. It’s facilitated by bribery, power and political influence,” said Nora Bowier a lead campaigner at SDI. “It worsens poverty as it deprives communities of their rights to a fair deal and economic benefits from their land and resources.
“These things undermine the intent of the Land Rights Act.”
But Jallah argues he acquired the controversial land before the legislation and does not necessarily have to act within its confines. “The land there is for us by inheritance,” said Jallah, who was a senator when the Land Rights Act was passed into law. “My mother was given land there, and additional land was given to me there by my grandfather. What you see there precedes what you call Land Rights Act or Land Authority regulations.”
Jallah was right. He first cleared the land in 2016 and made a rice farm. The next year, he started planting the palm and continued up to 2018, the year the law was created. However, the Land Rights Policy, which laid the framework for land reform in Liberia, had been in place since 2013. It recommended, “Decision about customary land will be made at the most local level consistent with sound policy and shared responsibilities between the government, communities and their members.” The policy was meant to curtail a horde of land-related conflicts across the country that spiraled out of control in the early 2000s after 14 years of bloody civil war. It would lead to the Liberia Land Authority and the Act Against Criminal Conveyance of Land and the current land law.
Jallah claims he holds his mother’s deed for the land. Sylvester Jallah, his younger brother, has tribal certificates, seen by The DayLight, for a combined 750 acres of land plus a couple of lots in the same region. But the Land Rights Act addresses titles related to customary land before it became law. It mandates all tribal certificates be vetted and transformed into deeds. a process that has already started, with some deeds already issued, according to Adams Manobah, the chairman of the Land Authority. Moreover, it categorizes lands obtained through aborigine deeds as customary lands.
“In those days when people were advocating for land for rural communities, they used the names of chiefs and elders to sign the deed on behalf of the entire community,” said Alphonso Henries a campaigner with Liberia Reform Movement, which advocates for land rights. “But it doesn’t mean that that chief whose name is on the deed owns the land or his children.”
Gbarpolu is a hub for aborigine land grant deeds that are written in chiefs’ names. The late Paramount Jallah Lone—the former senator’s father—claimed he controlled 790,982 acres of land in Bopolu. The county came under the spotlight in the private use permit (PUP) Scandal of 2012. In the biggest intrigue to hit the forestland sector since the end of the Liberian Civil War, officials of the FDA connived with logging companies, and private landowners to loot Liberian logs. Seven of the 62 PUPs abused in the scam came from Gbarpolu, six of them Bopolu alone, according to a report that year by the then Land Commission. They covered 627,657 hectares of land or 20 percent of the total PUP-affected landmass.
Ali Kaba, a land rights expert and one of the crafters of the Land Rights Act, warns authorities to prevent another countrywide crisis. “In light of the PUP Scandal, I think it is important for the government to formulate regulations addressing land claims (private or otherwise) in customary communities,” Kaba said in an emailed interview. “As demonstrated by the scandal, the lack of clear regulations can lead to land-grabs by elites and the eviction of rural communities.”
The Land Authority is aware of the potential for conflict over community land and will complete the land rights regulations within the next six months, according to Manobah. He said people claiming land from tribal certificates and aborigine deeds like Jallah must have the backing of their communities.
“If the community says they don’t know about it, we can’t force them to say they know about it,” he tells me in a mobile phone interview. “If you have a tribal certificate and you developed portion of the [land that tribal certificate represents]…the area that you developed is a hundred percent for you on grounds that the tribal certificate is good. If it is not good at all, then you don’t have any claim.
“On that ground, we can’t say you have the land. That is when you and the community will have to negotiate.”
Back in Underwear Town, Jallah enjoys the support of the chiefs and elders, while there remains opposition to his possession of the land.
“It is good for a single person to get 850 acres of a clan land because the people are benefiting, said Janga Togba, the town chief of Underwear, who works at the plantation. “At the end of the day, we will benefit.”
“They gave the land to Armah Jallah and don’t have any land to farm on again,” said Alex Roberts, an aggrieved resident of Underwear Town. “We are all looking for an area to make our farms.”
Henry Gboluma contributed to this report.
This story is a part of The DayLight Land-grab Reporting Series.
Banner Image: The headquarters of Starwood in Siaway Town, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/William Q. Harmon
By William Q. Harmon
BOLD DOLLAR TOWN, Grand Bassa County- In 2017, Starwood, INC. signed a 15-year agreement with Matro Kpogblen Community Forest in District No. 4, Grand Bassa County. They promised to construct a school, erect a clinic and provide safe drinking water.
Four years since signing the concession for the 8,833-hectares of the humid forestland, the Singaporean company has failed to fulfill any part of the agreement.
Now, the leadership of the community forest is seeking an end to their association with the company. The entire communities—chiefs, elders, women, youth leaders, Representative Thomas A. Goshua, II., the lawmaker of that district.
“Having realized the failure of the third-party holder to live up to agreement signed with the community, the community assembly, the executive committee, have agreed to cancel the agreement and terminate all relations with the third-party holder with immediate effect,” reads a resolution they reached at a meeting on May 9. (The assembly is the highest decision-making body in community forestry, and the executive committee takes decisions for that body). The community informed the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) about its decision in communication on June 28, 2021.
Starwood did not respond to queries for comments on the matter. An executive of the Singaporean company did not respond to email and text messages, the same with numerous calls The DayLight made to him.
There is room for Starwood’s concession termination. Failure to honor its obligations with Kpogblen is a breach of the CRL. It also violates the MoU with the community, which spells out specific timelines for the implementation of projects, payments of land rental and harvesting fees, almost all of which have elapsed. For instance, by December 2019, the company was to construct 18 hand pumps in each of the 18 towns and villages, erected a school and construct a clinic. These projects should have provided jobs for locals from towns and villages affected by the company’s operations.
Siaway Town is one of the communities affected by Starwood’s logging operations. The DayLight/William Q. Harmon
Atty. Gertrude Nyaley, FDA’s community forest department technical manager, says Matro Kpogblen is acting legally. “The company should not be reneging on paying what is due to the community,” Nyaley says in an interview at FDA’s headquarters in Whein Town, Paynesville. “If they do, then the community can take actions on the basis of nonperformance.
“It is not our role to support any company.”
The FDA is partly responsible for the problem in Matro-Kpogblen, which has plagued other communities across Liberia.
The Guptas, the Singaporean family who owns Starwood, also has Indo Africa and Sing Africa. Indo Africa signed separate agreements with Bondi Mandingo and Korninga B in Gbarpolu in 2018 and 2019, respectively. And Sing Africa sealed a deal with Bluyeama in Lofa in 2015. Similarly, those companies have all failed to live up to their contracts with those communities. Like Matro Kpogblen, Korninga B wants to cancel their deal with Indo Africa.
“It is not right for the FDA to be allowing a company that has not lived up to its obligations in one community to obtain a logging contract in another,” says Jonathan Yiah, the lead forestry campaigner at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) in a mobile phone interview. “We strongly believe that the FDA must conduct a much stronger due diligence that will ensure that the company is credible and has the capacity to operate a particular concession.”
Disappointment over the failure of the logging deal with Starwood is commonplace among villagers in this remote clan bordering River Cess County. The company failed to pay US$27,000 in land rental fees and an unspecified amount of harvesting fees. It did not provide adequate jobs for locals as promised as well as annual contributions to the community’s scholarship program.
“Starwood has failed to help improve our community and there is no need to be here because we are disappointed,” says Yeaton Siaway, the chief officer of the Kpogblen Community Forest Management Body, which represents the interest of the community in the logging deal with Starwood.
Amid their decision to cancel Starwood’s agreement, locals want the Singaporean company to pay the fees it owes them.
“The FDA has to prevail on this company to pay our benefits. They have been holding onto our forest since 2017 and we are not benefiting anything from them,” says Joshua Goah, a resident of Bold Dollar Town. “We need our benefit and they must provide it.”
Banner Image: A trader serves a buyer at a vegetable kiosk in Congo Town. The DayLight/Theophilus Jackson
By William Selmah
MONROVIA – The underpayment of vegetables producers by traders is gravely undermining productivity in the sector, a new study has established.
“Farmers complain about traders and switch between them, but are at the same time dependent on them,” said the “Snapshot: Liberia’s Vegetables Market” study conducted by Grow Liberia published earlier this year.
The payment disparity often becomes so huge that a farmer entering the market with eight bags of pepper, for example, can expect to receive payment for only six, it said.
The study also found that wastage to be a key challenge in the Liberin vegetable sector. Traders demand farmers to overstuff their bags and in turn demand them to subtract cost of spoilt produce, it said. Such a transaction for the person with eight bags, could lead them losing two out eight bags put up for sale.
On the overall, the research found, the entire vegetable market appears to favor mainly traders, as they decide prices and buy as cheap as possible, but sell at very high rate. Besides, traders decide the prices of commodities, not producers.
Other constraints identified in the survey are farmers’ lack of access to up-to-date, relevant information, limited investment in storage, packaging and other means of reducing wastage.
But despite producers’ losses, the study found only few traders are willing to offer better prices, and there is a lack of investment in the sector.
“The few market actors with the interest and incentive to invest in storage, transport and packaging lack access to information and networks to source equipment,” it said. “This is further compounded by farmers’ lack of relevant, up to date information or new, high value crops.
“Local farmers produce vegetable varieties using self-retained seeds that have likely lost genetic purity. This affects the quality and physical attributes of the produce.”
Another factor the study identified is local farmers’ lack of access to mechanized agricultural services keeps their dependence on annual tools such as hoes, cutlasses, rakes, shovels, etc. Consequently, labor cost will constitute 20-35 percent of total cultivation cost. As a result of this and other constraints, the research found that there is shortage of quality vegetable products on the market. That situation has led hotels and supermarkets to turn to commercial farms for supplies.
The study recommends trade models that benefit not only traders, but farmers as well, in addition to investment in local production to create affordable inputs that are better suited for Liberia.
A mature eggplant. The DayLight/Grow Liberia
The study also recommended diverse access to sources of finance, more local access to information on vegetable cultivation to increase yields and reduce risks.
The Agri-business and investment advisory agency collaborates with businesses, investors, associations and government agencies to and drive economic growth. It identifies key constraints, and opportunities to shift business norms that could spur inclusive growth. It currently works in the cocoa and vegetable industries and previously within rubber, oil palm and processing of agriculture produce.
Agriculture contributed more than US$26 million or 32 percent of the Liberian revenue package in fiscal year 2018/2019, according to the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives’ latest report.
Banner Image: A placard at the SOS Hospital in Congo Town showing different locations for coronavirus vaccine administration. The DayLight/William Harmon
By Emmanuel Sherman
MONROVIA – A campaign seeking to engage communities in Liberia to turn out and get vaccinated against coronavirus has been launched in Monrovia.
The campaign is part of Supporting Effective Advocacy in Liberia (SEAL), a project, which seeks to create awareness, provide information and carry out promotions on the new, deadly Delta variant of the coronavirus. It is being implemented by the National Civil Society Council of Liberia, Mercy Corps alongside 25 civil society and community based organizations.
“As we launch this COVID-19 advocacy action today, it is important that you understand the basic health COVID-19 protocols and other international health regulations of the virus,” said Joseph Weah the communication and advocacy lead at the NPHIL at the launch over the weekend. “By doing so, it will put you in a better position in your advocacy and awareness drive.”
Currently, Liberia is experiencing its third wave of the pandemic. Up to date, the country has accumulated 5,727 cases and 245 deaths as of Sunday, according to the National Public Health Institute (NPHIL).
Liberia has received two types of vaccines—the Johnson & Johnson, which is given as a single dose per person and the AstraZeneca, which is two doses per person. Vaccination is being administered at a number of health facilities in the country, including the SOS Hospital and the St. Joseph Catholic Hospital in Congo Town, Redemption Hospital in New Kru Town, the 14 Military Hospital on the Roberts International Airport highway and the John F. Kennedy Medical Hospital in Sinkor. However, people are not turning out to get them.
Loretta Pope Kai, in the middle, and representatives of NGOs and the government of Liberia. The DayLight/Emmanuel Sherman
“One key activity is to enhance citizens’ awareness on their rights to basic services, mechanism to access them and document the evidence of access to services in SEAL’s targeted counties,” said Loretta Pope Kai, the chairperson of the National Civil society Council of Liberia. “In June this year, we strongly worked with SEAL partners to revise our advocacy strategy to strengthen awareness on the ground working through CSOs.”
Mwesigwa Bikie Isharaza, the interim director of programs at Mercy Corps, underscored the importance of CSOs and urged them to remain engaged with communities by giving them access to information that will enhance the fight against COVID-19.
The campaign is funded by the European, Irish Aid, KVINNA TILL KVINNA and Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). It targets communities in Montserrado, River Cess, Grand Gedeh, River Gee, Sinoe, Maryland and Grand Kru.
