Top: Liberian civil society actors have called on the European Union to include rubber to the list of commodities to be produced sustainably in a proposed regulation. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – Liberian civil society actors have suggested that the European Union include the rubber industry and financiers in the proposed European Union’s new regulation on agriculture products linked to deforestation and land degradation across the country.
The European Union, the second-largest importer of agriculture products from Africa next to Asia, named oil palm, cocoa, coffee, and timbers under its proposed deforestation-free products regulation but did not capture the rubber industry, which occupies 405,008.229 hectares or 14.8 percent of Liberia’s total forestland, according to an analysis by The DayLight.
Deforestation, which involves the clearing of wide areas of trees, undermines biodiversity and heightens the impact of climate change. Liberia, which covers 42 percent of the remaining area of the Upper Guinea Forest containing important animal and plant species, faces increasing threats from plantation owners expand.
“The regulation is good, but we need to look at other issues,” said Jonathan Yiah, a forest campaigner at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI). “There is a need for us to include issues of accountability that will cover both producers and EU countries, including rights of communities.”
The EU guideline meant to improve governance across agriculture and forestry sectors also failed to include financiers of companies who have received billions of dollars from European Banks that have largely contributed to deforestation. A report by the Global Witness last year found Dutch Banks have spent US3.1 billion through loans provided to oil palm projects in West Africa. Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL), the country’s largest oil palm company, reaped US$375 million of this amount through loans it secured from the Utrecht-based, Rabobank the report said.
Campaigners say adding companies’ financiers to the regulation would halt European investment in deforestation-related projects.
“Adding financiers to the regulation will send out a loud message of deterrence for people who may want to continuously use [their] money to exploit the system,” Yiah said at a daylong review of the document over the weekend, founded by the EU.
The proposed regulation on deforestation is a supporting arm of the VPA, a legally-binding trade agreement between the European Union and a timber-producing country outside the EU. Like the VPA, regulation “No 995/2010” seeks to ensure that timber and timber products exported to the EU market come from legal sources and that they are in compliance with the local and international trade regulations. Going forward, exporters must provide documents on land use rights, clearance on environmental protection assessment, sales rights, among others.
The review formed part of an ongoing consultation process taking place across producer countries in West Africa. The review was also meant to strengthen the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) and its Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with producer-countries. Next year, European parliaments are expected to finalize the document after their assessment of the inputs of civil society with its enforcement scheduled for 2024.
Top: An elderly woman said she suffered irritation in her eyes after a car crashed with ammonium nitrate onboard in her village. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
By Varney Kamara
SMALL BOMI, Grand Cape Mount – Barely two weeks after a Bea Mountain truck crashed—spilling ammonium nitrate in a roadside village in Grand Cape Mount—residents of the town are now experiencing different illnesses whose signs are consistent with the inhalation of the dangerous chemical, an investigation by The DayLight has found.
This reporter observed villagers coughing, while others spoke of running stomach, severe headache, chest pain in the chest, eye irritation dried throat, and swollen feet. Some of the sick people we interviewed said they were directly involved in the cleaning of the chemical from the village. Eyewitnesses told The DayLight townsmen who helped clear the area after the chemical spillage, were not issued protective gears.
“I am feeling as if one side of my head is bursting. I am also feeling severe pain in my eyes and in my throat,” Dabah Kawa, a resident of Small Bomi, said through an interpreter. “I can barely sleep at night because of the continued coughing.
“I saw the white dusty smoke with people shouting all around the big car. I ran to my house and realized that the smoke had taken over my entire room,” Kawa said.
Thirty-six villagers have fallen sick, according to Zwannah Zoduah, town chief of Small Bomi. “I was in Monrovia when that thing happened but, I came and joined my people, and we all have started coughing seriously,” he said. The sick include women, children and the elderly, this reporter observed.
Used as an explosive and fertilizer, ammonium nitrate can affect humans. People who come in close contact with the chemical can experience a burning sensation on the skin and in the eyes. Other symptoms include irritation of the nose, throat, and lungs, studies showed. High-level inhalation of the substance can lead to severe headaches, fatigue, and blue color to the skin and lips, and even death.
Villagers in Small Bomi are now showing most of these symptoms, nearly three weeks after they participated in clearing the chemical from their town.
Bea Mountain, which imported the ammonium nitrate, said it will shortly issue a statement on the latest development emanating from Small Bomi. “We have done our own assessment of the situation and management is expected to make a statement soon,” said Henry Vincent, community relations superintendent of Bea Mountain Mining Corporation.
A villager says she has experienced chest pain after a car crashed in her village with ammonium nitrate on board. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
On Saturday, 19 February 2022, a truck carrying the company’s explosives crashed in the Small Bomi village, spilling 26 tons of ammonium nitrate. The truck, marked “TR-007,” was transporting the chemical from Buchanan, Grand Bassa, to the company’s Liberty Goldmine in Kinjor, nearly two kilometers away from the scene of the crash. The consignment was part of 5,000 metric tons of chemical compound shipped to Liberia by KAPEKS, Bea Mountain’s Turkish supplier.
Following the incident, authorities at the EPA, the agency which oversees the transportation of chemical materials had said the spillage was “unlikely to cause any adverse environmental or health risk to the residents of the Small Bomi community.” The agency denied the current condition of the villagers was connected to the spillage of the chemical.
“The agency, therefore, submits that the alleged symptoms presented by the patients…are completely unrelated to the 19th February ammonium nitrate accident,” EPA said in a statement to The DayLight on Friday.
Ammonium nitrate can have both long and short-term effects on people, according to experts. The short-term effect may happen immediately or shortly after exposure. The long-term may last for months or years.
The situation in Small Bomi has claimed the attention of health authorities in the area. Doctors at the Sinje Health Center became concerned after they found no evidence of common cold, typhoid, and malaria—the most common sicknesses they treat in that area—after examining two villagers. It prescribed multivitamins, paracetamol, chloramphenicol, and amoxicillin for two patients, according to the prescriptions seen by us.
“After physical examination of the patients, I found out that their condition is stable,” said Daniel Kofa, Medical Director of the Sinje Health Center, announcing the county health team was to shortly conduct an assessment of the situation.
“Given the history of the patients, we have alerted the county health team on this matter. It is a community matter which has drawn interest,” Kofa said.
Top: Bloh Sayeah wrongly likened USAID’s US$10 million Land Management Activity to an ill-fated loan Firestone awarded Liberia in the 1920s. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
Bloh Sayeh, a commissioner at the Liberia Land Authority, might have impressed delegates of the just-ended National Land Conference with a piece of a history lesson on the United States of America’s contribution to Liberia’s nation-building process. Just that she got it wrong by comparing a US$10 million USAID—which was launched at the conference—to the controversial Firestone Loan of 1927.
Sayeh recounted the United States’ contribution to Liberia, citing the Quakers, whose advocacy led to the abolition of slavery, subsequently, the formation of the Liberian nation in 1822. However, she incorrectly added the loan to her list.
Fact-check
The former director of the Center for National Documents and Records Agency was wrong in two ways: First, the United States Agency for International Development is an entity of the U.S. government, while Firestone is a private firm. So, a loan from Firestone should not be listed as goodwill from the people of America. Second, and most importantly, the loan proved counterproductive to Liberia and tested U.S.-Liberia relations those days.
To understand The DayLight’s fact-checking of her comments, we need to dig a little more into history.
As a part of the agreement between Liberia and Firestone, the Liberian government was given funding to pay the foreign debts it had incurred and to develop a harbor necessary for rubber exportation. In return for a US$5 million loan at a seven percent interest rate, Firestone was given complete authority over Liberian revenues until it was repaid. Over time the loan took a larger and larger portion of government income: it grew from 20 percent of the total revenue of Liberia in 1929, to 32 percent in 1930, to 54.9 percent in 1931, and nearly the whole revenue in 1932. A member of the American Legation in Liberia estimated that Liberia effectively paid a 17 percent interest rate on the loan.
The loan had always been controversial, owned to the infamous clause “K,” in the last stages of the negotiation. It was the same as the US$8 million loan deal the Daniel E. Howard administration had obtained from the US government but was disapproved by Congress. Clause K had sparked protest in and outside the country. It was only accepted after both parties saw the deal as necessary for their political economies.
At the end of World War I, Great Britain—the leader of the global trade of rubber—decided to restrict the supply of the commodity on the world market. So, Firestone decided to come to Liberia to nullify Great Britain’s dominance of the global rubber market. Liberia’s humid climate was an ideal area for growing rubber. It also found that Liberia had a cheap labor force, and the government too was eager to offer a concession in exchange for U.S. protection against colonial neighbors who were impatient to annex the country, a nation it helped establish in 1822. Moreover, Firestone wanted political control in Liberia to protect its long-term investment. Liberia owed more than US$1 million to British bankers. That was a safeguard to avoid the British direct meddling into Liberia’s internal affairs. Also, Firestone’s action was a strategic decision aimed at protecting its rubber production deal with the Liberian government. Similarly, the U.S. government got interested and supported Firestone’s plans which included a promise to construct a major port. Firestone did not need a port to export the rubber from Liberia but merely proposed it to get the approval and support of the US State Department, which was particularly interested in a port on the West African coast for naval use.
As the price of rubber fell during the Great Depression, Firestone stopped its development of the plantation, using just 50,000 acres and cutting wages in half. Depriving the Liberian government of tax incomes, Liberia missed a loan payment to the company. Firestone asked the U.S. government to send a warship to Monrovia to enforce the debt payment, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt disallowed the “gunboat diplomacy,” writing in a memorandum to the State Department that, “At all times we should remember that (Harvey) Firestone went to Liberia at his own financial risk, and it is not the business of the State Department to pull his financial chestnut out of the fire except as a friend of the Liberian people.”
In 1932, the Liberian Legislature passed the Moratorium Act, suspending payment of the Firestone loan until terms could be negotiated that were more in line with Liberia’s ability to pay. The U.S. suspended diplomatic relations but did not take further action. To date, there’s no record to show that the government paid back Firestone this money.
Top: Some of a 26-kilogram consignment of ammonium nitrate spilled into a private yard in Sinje, Grand Cape Mount County last month. Photo Credit: Philip Zodua
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – An explosive-manufacturing company, which supplies Bea Mountain in Liberia, smuggled arms and explosives to Libya in 2018, an investigation by The DayLight has revealed.
In September 2018, the UN Panel of Experts’ report found KAPEKS violated an arms embargo on the northern African nation. The weapons were seized on board the El Mukhtar vessel in the southern and central Mediterranean during a special security operation carried out by the European Union (EU) military, the UN said at the time.
During the operation, the EU troops discovered and seized boxes labeled “KAPEKs.” It is one of several Turkish companies that exploited Libya’s weak law enforcement, resulting in widespread criminal networks, sexual abuse, and impunity, the panel added.
“The Panel has received footage of LNA specialized units defusing [improvised explosive devices (IEDs)] in Benghazi featuring large boxes containing detonating cords manufactured by an explosive manufacturer based in Turkey and surrounding areas,” the report found.
“Part of that footage shows the seizure in early 2017 of large boxes wrapped with multiple layers of plastic foil on board a vessel sailing from Misrata. The boxes seized contained explosives including detonating cords and featured stickers of the manufacturing company,” it added.
The UN placed the embargo on the import and transfer of weapons to Libya as part of the Security Council Resolution 1973. The panel had identified arms smuggling as one of the multiple factors that fueled the war in Libya, threatening the country’s peace, security, and stability. The panel further raised concern that such illicit maneuverings increased attacks against state institutions and installations. It uncovered that the embargo had been largely ineffective, leading to human rights violations against civilians, migrants, and asylum-seekers.
Unlike Libya, ammonium nitrate explosives supplied by KAPEKS are being used for industrial purposes in Liberia.
However, the Turkish firm has appeared in the news twice in the last two years in relation to its supply of ammonium nitrates to Bea Mountain in Liberia.
The first was an illegal shipment of 4,000 metric tons of the explosive chemical in 2020 via the Port of Buchanan. That importation breached the Environmental Protection Agency’s requirements for the shipment of chemical substances. The law prescribes a 20-year prison term, a fine of US$50,000 for a violator, or both. It is not clear whether a fine was paid for that violation.
Then a truck transporting 26 metric tons of the chemical compound crashed in Sinje, Grand Cape Mount County on its way from Buchanan to Bea Mountain’s Liberty Goldmine in Kinjor. The ill-fated consignment was part of 5,000 metric tons of the chemical, whose shipment had met all legal requirements, according to official documents. EPA’s Executive Director Wilson Tarpeh said “the incidence is unlikely to cause any adverse environmental or health risk” to residents.
KAPEKS did not respond to The DayLight’s queries into this matter up to press time.
KAPEKs, established in 2007 by a group of Turkish engineers, is an explosives enterprise headquartered in Ankara, Turkey. The company has some of its businesses scattered across different African countries, including Libya. It is the main supplier of ammonium nitrate to Bea Mountain, also a Turkish firm. Bea Mountain has a 25-year mineral development agreement with the government of Liberia for the extraction of gold in the Garwula and Gola Konneh districts of Cape Mount.
Top: Sarah Tugbo receives Jargleoken’s self-identification certificate from Commissioner Ellen Pratt of the Land Authority. The Gwelepoken District community in Maryland was one of 31 communities certified at the just-ended Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa County – Thirty-one communities from Lofa, Maryland and River Gee have been formally recognized as landowning communities, a key requirement in the Land Rights Act.
Covering an estimated 627,458.93 hectares, 14 of the communities are from Maryland, 13 from River Gee and four from Lofa. Their certification was one of the highlights of the just-ended National Land Conference, held in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County.
“I feel so good and I am very glad for my community to be certificated,” said Paramount Chief Alvin Daniels of Mimunken, River Gee in an interview with The DayLight after the end of the conference. “We have power over our own land.”
“We were in darkness,” said Sarah Tugbo of Jargleoken, Gwelepoken District of Maryland County. “We feel free, they [taught] us well and we know what is right and good.”
Nora Bowier, the lead land rights campaigner at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) speaks at the just-ended Land Conference. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) supported the communities as part of a one-year USAID-funded Integrated Land Resource Governance (ILRG) project, costing over US$300,000.
Nora Bowier, SDI’s lead land-rights campaigner, told The DayLight in an interview the communities had also completed their bylaws, and set up governance bodies, with some having already completed cutting boundaries with neighboring areas. Having reached that far, all 31 communities will the Liberia Land Authority will survey their territories alongside a GPS-coordinated mapping to conclude the process to get their deeds.
Bowier said SDI, which has now supported 75 communities in the process to obtain their titles, noted many challenges working in those areas.
“One of the challenges is women’s capacity communities and members of the CLDMC are many,” Bowier said.
She said the sizes of communities as well as members of the governance bodies—referred to in the land sector as community land development and management committee (CLDMC)—was another issue.
“We have realized the number of CLDMC are very huge, some up to 100 members. Bringing one hundred people to convene meetings is hard. So, we are thinking about scaling down the group, though we want to bring about equal representation.”
Top: Plastic materials form a huge part of Liberia’s solid wastes. The DayLight/Tom Portland
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – A United Nations resolution to end plastic pollution has been adopted, setting the foundation for the creation of an international treaty to combat the global crisis.
On Tuesday, 175 countries, including Liberia, met in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and approved the landmark deal to end plastic pollution, which has claimed global attention. The conference was the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly known as UNEA 5-2.
“This is the most important international multilateral environmental deal since the Paris Climate Accord,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The adoption of the UNEA-5.2 resolution came four months after the 2021 Glasgow Climate Change Conference, where more than 100 nations agreed to reduce methane emissions, currently responsible for a third of human-generated warming. Delegates at the COP26 agreed to cut the emissions down to 30 percent by 2030.
Both COP26 and the UNEA have a common goal of reducing the impact of pollution on climate change. During the conference, member states were urged to speed up the implementation of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), non-binding national plans highlighting climate change mitigation, including climate-related targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions, policies, and measures governments aim to implement in response to climate change.
The resolution leaves member states with the challenge of abiding by commitments they made both at the COP26 and the UNEA conference in combatting climate change and or global warming which has been heightened by plastic pollution.
Liberia, a country that has huge stockpiles of plastic pollutants spread across different garbage in Monrovia and other coastal cities, says it is committed to global efforts in lowering the impact of pollution on climate change.
In July last year, 43 months after the signing of the Paris Accord, the Liberian Government revised its NDCs to collect and collate wastes. The plan would allow the government to harmonize and integrate environmental issues and concerns into the overall national development planning, it said. In August 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA) adopted a National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP) aimed at tackling issues such as environmental pollution. That said, it is not clear what has been achieved relative to the government’s pledge to cut down greenhouse emissions to 60% by 2030.
The Nairobi-UNEA’s resolution sets the stage for the creation of an international treaty banning plastic pollution, an ambitious goal that has been earmarked for 2024.
Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles such as plastic bottles, bags and microbeads, which can affect land, waterways and oceans. It occurs when plastic has been gathered or assembled in an area and begins to negatively impact the natural environment and create problems for plants, wildlife, and even the human population. Often, this includes killing plants’ life and posing dangers to local animals, experts say.
Plastic, which has its evolution in the creation of natural materials more than a century ago, has become a top debate among global environmental champions. Despite its immense contributions to science and modernization, its pollution impact on climate change and the ecosystem has braced the global community struggling for a solution.
Pollution from plastics exacerbates climate change and can be extremely harmful to the environment. In 2019, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) estimated that the production and burning of plastic would add 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. By 2050, it was projected that the figure would rise to 2.8 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year.
Plastic pollution also has health implications, a major global concern.
Studies showed that plastic pollution can lead to respiratory illnesses such as cough, mucus, severe and changing reduction in lung functions, and can even lead to fatalities. Last year, there were nine million premature deaths globally caused by plastic pollution, according to a UN report on the environment, which recommended the banning of “forever” substances, cleaning of polluted sites and possible relocation of affected communities.
Africa, a continent with 1.3 billion people (16 percent of the world’s population), produces five percent and consumes four percent of global plastic volumes, according to a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), a global conservation non-governmental organization working to reduce pollution impact on the environment. As of last year, China, Brazil, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa are among the biggest plastic polluting nations in the world, according to the UN.
Top: USAID Mission Director Jim Wright speaks at the launch of Land Management Activity on the second day of the National Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County on March 2, 2022. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa County – Jim Wright, the Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has urged players in the land sector to continue to support rural communities formalizing the right to their land.
Wright spoke on Wednesday when USAID launched the Land Management Activity (LMA), a US$10 million project whose aim is to support 100 customary communities to legalize their ancestral land.
“I urge all stakeholders in the land space to remain engaged and assist communities to harvest the benefits that come with secure land tenure rights,” Wright told over 165 delegates of the National Land Conference while launching the four-year scheme. “I also encourage communities to not only become deed holders but to also utilize those deeds to transform their lives and those of their children and grandchildren.”
Liberia’s Land Rights Act guarantees customary land ownership and women’s rights. Under the law, towns and villages must first identify themselves as a single landowning community, demarcate their boundaries with neighboring areas and create a governance body, among other things. After that, the Liberia Land Authority conducts a survey to confirm the community’s landmass and awards it a deed.
However, implementation of the law has been a challenge, with many communities across the country yet to begin or complete the legal requirements in the law.
Wright said the LMA, which replaces the Land Governance Support Activity that ended in 2020, will support the Land Authority to guide the communities as they go through the legal process to acquire their ancestral deeds.
“Securing customary land rights is critical to strengthening Liberia’s democracy, sustaining peace, promoting economic growth and the sustainable management of land and environmental resources, and empowering women, youth and marginalized populations,” he said.
Bloh Sayeh, Commissioner of the Land Authority, praised the United States for its support, citing historical ties dating as far back as the formation of Liberia in the 1820s.
ECODIT, an international nongovernmental organization, is working with Tetra Tech, another international NGO, and three Liberian civil society organizations to implement the LMA project. The organizations are the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), Rights and Rice Foundation (RRF) and Talking Drum Studio. It targets communities in Nimba, Lofa, Bong, Margibi, Grand Bassa and Montserrado.
ECODIT’s Chief of Party Kadidia Dienta told delegates at the conference that the LMA project would also support communities plan the use of their land, see to it women, youth and other marginalized groups participate in land governance and management, promote the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to resolve land conflicts.
Mrs. Dienta urged players in the land sector, including the NGOs implementing the project and the Land Authority, to work together.
“As the old motto goes, ‘With only one finger, it becomes difficult to lift a pebble.’ We have to join efforts, we need to collaborate, and consult with one another to advance the implementation process of Liberia’s new land policy,” she said.
“To ensure achievement of the vision and objectives of the new Land Policy, we have no choice but work together, support and complement each other’s interventions,” she added.
Mrs. Dienta’s comments struck a chord with the land community. The project comes after months of a frosty relationship between actors in civil society and the Land Authority. A report last month found the agency issued 11 deeds to individuals in Nimba and a town in Bomi from tribal certificates in the absence of regulations. Campaigners, including authors of the report, called on the agency to recall those deeds in order to prevent land-grab. Atty. Adams Manobah, chairman of the Land Authority, refuted that criticism in an interview with the DayLight, saying the deeds had been issued as part of a “pilot.”
Nora Bowier of the SDI said the pair should not find it difficult to work together on the project and in the future, despite their issues. “We have been working together with the Liberia Land Authority on previous projects, so we already have a foundation,” Bowier said. “I think this project will make it stronger.”
The National Land Conference is being held under the theme: “Celebrating three years of the Land Rights Act.” It is the biggest event on land since the creation of the law. It started on Tuesday earlier this week and ended Thursday.
Top: Renée Gibson, a member of the CSO Oil Palm Working Group, reads the group’s position at a side event at the opening of the Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa – The Civil Society Oil Palm Working Group (CSO-OPWG) and representative of communities affected by alleged land-grab have called on the government to nullify customary land deeds it has issued that arose from tribal certificates.
In a side event at the ongoing National Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, the group called on the Land Authority to halt its issuance of tribal certificates in order to “reverse elite land-grab” in the country.
A report published last month by the CSO Land Reform Working Group (CSO LRWG) found the Land Authority issued 11 deeds to individuals in Nimba and a community in Bomi from tribal certificates in the absence of regulations and without the participation of campaigners.
There have also been reports of current and former government officials, and influential businesspeople claiming community lands across the country. Dubbed by civil society organizations as “elite land-grab,” the practice has seen many communities their ancestral land.
“We, the community representatives from Grand Bassa, River Cess and Margibi, Bomi and Cape Mount issue this declaration to highlight some of the most critical issues that must be addressed in the implementation of the Land Rights Act and are priority discussions for the National Land Conference,” the group’s statement, read by Renée Gibson of the Rural Integration Center for Community Empowerment (RICCE), said.
Loretta Pope Kai, chairperson of the National Civil Society Council of Liberia calls on the government to halt its issuance of tribal certificates and nullify deeds already granted from the papers. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
“This important meeting needs to take stock of the challenges since the passage of the law in 2018,” the statement added.
Those remarks were first made by Loretta Pope Kai, chairperson of the Civil Society Council of Liberia, at the opening ceremony of the Land Conference inside of the Buchanan City Hall.
Mrs. Pope Kai said the call to halt the granting of tribal certificates was in line with the law.
“This is key to halting and reversing land-grab,” she said.
The Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Land Authority Atty. Admas Manobah denied that the institution was wrong to sign deeds without guidelines and regulations. He said the Land Authority was conducting a trial on communities it had already given deeds.
“We are piloting, just how the civil society organizations are piloting community self-identification, just how they are piloting governance—the CLDMC—just how they are piloting boundary harmonization,” Manobah told The DayLight in an interview before the start of the conference.
Manobah also denied any wrongdoing for vetting tribal certificates without the awareness and participation of civil society, saying the law did not mandate that. “The validity of tribal certificates shall be determined by a rigid validation process involving the community conducted by the Liberia Land Authority,” according to the relevant provision of the law (Article 47).
“Does being [rigid] mean the civil society has to be part of it? I will say no. And there is no provision in the law that says the Land Authority cannot implement any provision of the law without civil society. “We have statutory responsibilities. No civil society [organization] has statutory responsibility. They have moral responsibility.”
Tribal certificates are arguably the most troublesome subject in Liberia’s land reform process. Chiefs and elders across Liberia had issued thousands of tribal certificates to individuals as a kind of title to lands in towns and villages. However, in many cases, the chiefs did not consult other members of the communities.
To address this problem, the law requires tribal certificates to be legally processed into deeds with the involvement of full membership of communities—men, women and the youth—that own the lands for which the documents were issued. The Liberia Land Authority is yet to formulate regulations for the implementation of the law, including the vetting of the controversial documents.
Liberia made history in 2018 when it passed into law the Land Rights Act, a landmark for recognizing rural communities’ ancestral land rights and recognition of women’s land ownership. Held under the theme: “Celebrating three years of the Land Rights Act,” the conference is expected to review the progress made since the creation of the law, challenges in its implementation and meeting those challenges in the future. The event brought together 165 delegates and is expected to end on Thursday a resolution.
Top: International Consultant Capital’s camp in Gbi-Doru District, Nimba County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
GBI-DORU DISTRICT and COMPOUND NUMBER TWO – When International Consultant Capital (ICC) stopped its logging operations in Nimba County in 2019, it was already owing villagers over US$55,000 having used their land and felled their timbers, leaving behind broken development promises and an estimated 7,000 logs, according to locals.
ICC and the Gbi-Doru Administrative District had signed the five-year social agreement in 2010 as part of forest management contract area K—commonly called FMC-K Nimba in the forestry sector—covering 127,842 hectares. FMC-K is the largest logging concession in Liberia, extending to River Cess and Grand Gedeh and totaling 266,910 hectares of woodlands.
The same year ICC parked off from Gbi-Doru, African Wood & Lumber Company (AWL)—now owned by Italian businessman Cesare Colombo, ICC’s CEO—signed logging deals with two community forests. In January, Colombo secured the agreement with Gbarsaw & Dorbor for 21,230 hectares of forest in Norwien District, River Cess County for five years. Later in July, he concluded the deal with Marblee & Karblee between Compound Number One and Two, Grand Bassa, giving him logging rights in its 24,355-hectare woodland for the same duration. AWL had been established in 2015 by a Liberian businessman called Krangar Logan and Colombo became its sole shareholder as of March last year, the company’s article of incorporation shows.
Like ICC in Gbi-Doru, AWL’s agreements with Gbarsaw & Dorbor and Marblee & Karblee have been marred by broken promises and indebtedness to the communities over land and log-harvesting fees. With no clauses in the deals for things like schools and clinics commonplace in logging contracts, both communities solely rely on harvesting fees to conduct development projects such as roads, schools and clinics.
AWL owes Gbarsaw & Dorbor US$5,000 for human resource development, and US$37,786 for land rental fees, the leadership of the community forest told The DayLight.
Colombo blames his company’s indebtedness to that community on illegal chainsaw milling. Also called pit-saw milling in the Liberian logging industry, chainsaw milling involved the use of chainsaws to rip logs into planks. The practice, which is currently unregulated, has increasingly become a nuisance across the forestry sector.
The situation in Marblee & karblee is even worse. The company owes the community US$39,000 for the use of its forestland, and US$6,000 for scholarships and has failed to pave dirt roads in that area in the last three years, according to locals. The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) did not grant our request for AWL’s record of payments and production, though the National Forestry Reform Law guarantees public access to such information. However, it harvested 6,136.59 cubic meters of logs from November 2020 to June last year, records of the company’s production The DayLight obtained show. That means the company owes the villagers US$,38,353 representing harvesting and development fees in line with their agreement.
“We are coming to have [a] meeting to write the company. If they don’t want the forest again, let them give it back to us,” says Arthur Bayogar, a community forest leader.
Colombo again denies any wrongdoing, adding that the company had also not paid the Marblee & Karblee the full amount due to illegal chainsaw-milling activities. He demands the community pays his company for every log the pit-sawyers harvested.
“The outstanding payment [is] due to the pit-sawing activity that is not allowed in the concession,” Colombo tells The DayLight in an emailed interview. “And for each log felled, compensation to the company [needs] to be calculated.”
‘Taking advantage’
Forest governance campaigners say Colombo’s move from FMC- K Nimba to community forests in River Cess and Grand Bassa is part of a new trend across the forestry sector. The last five years have seen companies and individuals associated with large logging agreements turn to community forests.
Under Liberian laws and regulations, companies enter logging concessions with the government but sign community forest deals directly with villagers. A guiding principle of forestry reform in Liberia, the scheme was meant to ensure rural towns and villages benefit from forest resources denied them for generations. But that has not worked for many communities, with companies being indebted to locals rife, some for over a decade.
Timbers harvested by International Consultant Capital (ICC) in 2019 are seen left by a roadside in Gbi-Doru Administrative District, Nimba County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Andrew Zelemen, a campaigner with the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee (NUCFDC), says Colombo and other businesspeople are exploiting the weakness of communities.
“My understanding is that some of these companies are taking advantage of the limited capacity of community members who are awarding these concessions to them,” Zelemen, whose group advocates for communities affected by large-scale concessions, tells me in a mobile phone conversation from Lofa. He says Colombo needs to explain why he left FMC-K for Gbarsaw & Dorbor and Marblee & karblee.
“Something is wrong somewhere and something is happening, and these companies need to tell us what they are doing the Liberian people’s forests,” he adds.
Bonathan Walaka, the secretary of the National Union of Community Forest Management Body (NUCFMB), agrees with Zelemen and says he understands Colombo’s shift to community forests.
“The reason is just simple,” Walaka says. “The land rental fees companies pay the government in FMCs are more than what they pay the government in community forests.” He argues Colombo saves more money from failing to pay Marblee & Karblee, for instance, than refusing to pay Gbi-Doru. By lay, companies pay communities 30 percent and the government 70 percent in land rental fees for large concessions such as FMC-K and 55 and 45 percent in the same order for community forests. By law, land rental fees are the product of US$1.25 and the size of hectares of a given forest.
“The government has the power to have the companies pay its share of land rental fees but the communities don’t,” Walaka says.
Walaka is referencing the law correctly. The FDA is not a party in community forest agreements but approves them as the government institution that oversees the forestry sector. The laws and regulations governing the sector are largely communities-centered.
However, in the cases of Gbarsaw & Dorbor and Marblee & Karblee, the FDA did not enforce those laws. For instance, despite debt to both communities, the FDA sanctioned three shipments of a combined 7,286.24 cubic meters of timbers produced by AWL between February and April last year, according to the record of the exports we got. That is a violation of the Ten Core Regulations, which call for firms to be clear of all forest-related dues before export. It is even sufficient ground for the FDA to terminate AWL’s agreement per the National Forestry Reform Law.
No law or regulation bars an individual associated with a company that has outstanding payments from obtaining a logging contract. But Jonathan Yiah, the lead forestry campaigner at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), thinks FDA did not exercise its oversight in Colombo’s community forest deals. He says it should have disapproved the Italian businessman’s deal with Gbarsaw & Dorbor and Marblee & Karblee over his connection to ICC and FMC-K.
“FDA allowing this to happen aids companies to be in huge arrears with communities,” Yiah says in an emailed interview. “FDA needs to ensure proper due diligence, it has responsibility for, is conducted.
“Once due diligence is done on each of the companies currently operating, the problem with logging operations in community forest may be reduced,” he adds.
Colombo refutes those criticisms, counterarguing that he invested millions in the communities to “create a cordial and friendly relationship” with locals.
“We are always committed to our obligation, and we never undermine the intent of the forestry reform in Liberia,” Colombo says, despite evidence showing the opposite.
The FDA did not grant our request for an interview on the matter. The DayLight wrote Deputy Managing Director Joseph Tally for the interview last month but did not get a reply up to press time.
This story is a part of The DayLight’s Forest Accountability and Transparency Reporting Series.
Top: A consignment of ammonium nitrate is seen scattered from the accident spot in Small Bomi, Sinje, Grand Cape Mount County. Picture credit: Philip Zodua
By Varney Karmara
SINJE, Cape Mount – A Bea Mountain truck carrying 26 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, which has caused some of the deadliest explosions in human history, crashed by a roadside in Sinje, Grand Cape Mount County in the early hours of last Saturday.
“Early Saturday morning, between 6 am [and] 7 am, we heard a loud sound as if a bomb had exploded. The sound was fearful, and everyone was warned to stay away from the chemicals which felt from the white truck,” said Mohammed Kawah, a resident of Small Bomi, where the accident occurred.
“The sound was so heavy to the extent that we started pushing everyone away from the truck,” Kawah added.
The two men were injured in the accident, eyewitnesses told The DayLight. Raymond S, the driver of the vehicle, was critically wounded and is receiving treatment at the St. Timothy Hospital in Robertsport, the townspeople said. Rescuers had to use another Bea Mountain vehicle to pull one of the car’s doors open to get the trapped, wounded driver out of the damaged truck.
The truck, marked “TR-007,” was transporting the chemicals from Buchanan, Grand Bassa County to Bea Mountain’s industrial goldmine in Kinjor, Garwula District. Minutes after the accident, the company dispatched a team of workers from its chemical department, who teamed up with experts from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clear the scene of the accident. The team revisited the site once more after this reporter arrived there.
“They came and sprinkled water to the area where the chemical wasted on the ground and warned us not to go around there,” Boimah Kiadii, Town Chief of Small Bomi, told this reporter. “They also advised us not to make any fire around there.
“They told us that the chemical is not bad, but they also warned us not to go close to it, and this made us worry about our safety,” Kiadii said, adding that Bea Mountain distributed 10 bags of kg rice among villagers.
Bea Mountain employees at the site where one of the company’s trucks carrying 24 metric tons of ammonium nitrate crashed on Saturday in Sinje, Grand Cape Mount County. Picture credit: Philip Zodua
The ammonium nitrate was part of a 5,000-metric-ton consignment of the chemical whose shipment into the country the government approved earlier this year, official records show. The injured driver was trained in the handling of dangerous substances, the fatal transport approved and the vehicle licensed by the EPA in line with environmental regulations and guidelines.
Ammonium nitrate is a white sparkling solid chemical that consists of ions of ammonium and nitrate and is used to produce high yield explosives and as a fertilizer. When coming in contact with direct heat, extreme sunray, or fire, ammonium nitrate can be very dangerous. It poses health, safety, and environmental risks. It can cause harm when swallowed, lead to eye irritation, produce toxic gas when mixed with acid, intensify the fire, and ignite an explosion when heated under confinement.
This is the second time Bea Mountain, owned by Turkish billionaire Nazif Günal, is appearing in the news for its controversial handling of ammonium nitrate. In 2020, the company imported 4,000 metric tons of the chemical without the approval of the EPA. That importation breached the EPA’s requirements for the shipment of chemical substances. The law prescribes a 20-year prison term, a fine of US$50,000 for a violator, or both. It is not clear whether Bea Mountain was fined at the time.
In August last year, residents of Kinjor saw their complaint against European financiers of Bea Mountain’s New Liberty Goldmine accepted over allegations of water pollution and failure to live up to the agreement it has with affected communities. The company signed a 25-year mineral development agreement with the government of Liberia in 2001 for the extraction of gold in the Garwula and Gola Konneh districts. In 2013, the deal was extended by another 25 years, taking it to 2038.
Efforts to reach Bea Mountain on the matter also did not materialize, as we were unable to get the exact location of the company’s headquarters in Monrovia and on Bushrod Island.
The EPA said in a news conference on Tuesday no residual of the chemical remained at the site of the crash. “No water sources were observed within [a] 10-meter radius of the area and the incident is unlikely to cause any adverse environmental or health risk to the residents of the Small Bomi community,” said Prof. Wilson Tarpeh, the executive director of the agency.
Despite the danger it poses, some countries still use the substance, including the United States. Countries in Eastern and Western Europe are the largest consumers of the commodity, consuming 53 percent in 2019, according to British information provider IHS Markit. Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Pakistan, and Turkey are among the countries that have banned the use of ammonia nitrate both as a fertilizer and explosive.
