Banner Image: Ariel view of a portion of the Palm Bay Estate of Equatorial Palm Oil’s (EPO) covering 6,400 hectares of land in Jogbahn Clan in District No.4, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue 

By James Harding Giahyue

MONROVIA – Campaigners from civil society organizations in Liberia on Thursday received training on the Accountability Framework initiative (AFi), a new tool for advocacy in the agriculture and forestry sectors.  

AFi was introduced in 2019 by a host of international nongovernmental organizations, including Proforest, Rainforest Alliance and the Meridian Institute. Combining international and local laws, policies, principles and best practices, it provides a standard for civil society’s advocacy for agriculture and forest-related companies to produce sustainably. It aims to reduce private sector-related deforestation and foster 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 one-day training workshop alongside Proforest Ghana—said it will help land and forest rights groups monitor companies and ensure they comply with social, environmental and economic standards.

“This is very important to us as civil society organizations,” said James Otto, who heads SDI’s community rights and corporate governance program, told participants at the opening of the daylong event. “This is going to be a build-on training so that the framework is actually implemented in Liberia.” 

“This is our opportunity in Liberia to understand what [AFi] is and see the linkages with our own efforts that we are making already, and see who we are going to take it and apply it in Liberia,” said Silas Siakor, one of the facilitators of the event

Siakor said coronavirus posed some challenges to the new initiative as it was established in the same year of the pandemic but momentum for the tool has started to take off. “The idea is really to drive stakeholders to take the concept and work with it,” he added.

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“The challenges in community forestry are self-explanatory. The companies will not perform. There will be some breaches by the community for tempering with the forest.” Jefferson Zoegbeh, the secretary general of Gheegbarn #2 Community Forest’s executive committee in Grand Bassa County, speaks at a recent meeting in Buchanan. Over 50 community land and forest leaders brainstormed conservation possibilities. Gathering from the southcentral county and River Cess next door, they discussed ways rural people could benefit from their forests rather than logging. It has been some 15 years since logging was reintroduced in community forests following the end of over a decade of Liberia’s bloody civil wars. Though postwar forestry guarantees communities’ benefits, locals have gained little from dozens of logging contracts countrywide, covering 2.3 million hectares. Official records show that of the 186 logging companies that have existed since 2009, just four or five are active. According to a recent report, they owe communities affected by large-scale concessions over US$21 million. The meeting was the second of a series of community-based consultations, the the previous held in Ganta, Nimba County. The events’ organizers intend to incorporate communities’ views—and a report—into a proposal to the Liberian government early next year.   “The best way for communities to get their benefits is to reserve their forest,” says Piyigar Gaybeon, Zuzohn Community Forest's chief officer in the same region as Gheegbarn #2. Zuzohn signed a contract with the Chinese-owned Booming Green, which was terminated by mutual consent. However, the company did not settle its debt to locals, including contractual projects before pulling out. “If we can get anything from any company to reserve the forest, we will agree. We need the generation to come and meet the forest there.” Organizers seek locals’ views on three ways they can benefit from conservation. The first is performance-based, where they get paid for a specific forest area that is easily measurable. The second is direct funding, which empowers communities without a third party and is less bureaucratic. And the third is enterprise development, where communities’ alternative livelihood programs are funded to keep locals away from the forests.
SALAYEA TOWN, Lofa County – In 2019, the Sehyi Clan in Sanniquellie-Mahn District, Nimba County began the legal process of acquiring a customary land deed. Sehyi’s community land development and management committee spearheads that process. Another clan group has exercised similar functions over Sehyi’s forest since 2017. The Sehyi Ko-doo Community Forest’s community forest management body comanages the 1,538-hectare forest alongside the Forestry Development Authority (FDA). There is a problem, though. The forest leadership does not have a good relationship with its land counterpart. Like several communities, they are at loggerheads, with mounting calls for a national conversation to resolve these disputes. But things are different in the Salayea District of Lofa County over 200 miles away. There, three—not two—community land and forest bodies, peacefully coexist and solve some of the district’s problems. Since 2009, the district has had a community forest development committee, representing locals’ interests in a large-scale logging concession. In 2016, the Salayea Community Forest was established, with a community leadership to co-manage the forest. Then in 2019, Palama, a clan that hosts a portion of the Salayea Community Forest, established a governance structure to help develop and manage its land. “If we don’t merge and work together, things will not work well for us,” says Yassah Mulbah, the chief officer of the Salayea Community Forest. “We are working together as a team for a goal to protect the forest, to take it from illegal activities for the community’s development,” adds Eva Kpandah, the chairperson of Palama Clan’s land committee. All three of the district’s bodies combat community challenges, including land conflicts and illegal mining activities.
MONROVIA – In the rainy season 2020, the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) investigated the scale of abandoned logs in Grand Bassa, River Cess, and Nimba Counties. Investigators were stunned by what they discovered: several companies had left thousands of logs in the bush, on open fields, at sawmills, and other locations for long periods. “Valuable species are continuously being harvested by logging companies without first securing sales contracts,” the investigators said in a report, “only to leave those logs unattended.” A signboard at a log yard used by Coveiyalah on the Bomi highway supported the investigator’s findings. It read: “Timber sale.” Investigators recommended that the FDA curtail the situation. The signboard came down not long after. Four years after the report—spanning two administrations—the FDA has yet to take any concrete action despite officially vowing on various occasions, to tackle the problem. Abandoned logs are symbols of the meltdown of the forestry sector, with companies deserting contracts, leaving debts and logs in their wake. Abu Musa Kamara, a campaigner at the National Union of Community Forestry Development Committee, calls on the FDA to verify companies’ capacity before approving contracts. He also urges constant monitoring and enforcement of forestry’s legal laws and regulations. “If these things happen, there will be no abandoned logs in concession areas,” Kamara tells The DayLight in an email. Logs are abandoned when left unattended at a location for a certain period. The Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber, and Timber Products imposes fines, a prison term, and contract termination. The regulation replaced a previous one that had proven ineffective seven years ago and undermined the regulator’s mandate to avoid waste of forest resources. Under the current regulation, the FDA must investigate and petition a court to auction abandoned logs. ‘Learning curve’ In 2022, the FDA ordered all companies to declare their production in LiberTrace, Liberia’s log-tracking system. It was a bid to tackle the situation albeit two years after the investigators’ report. Later that year, then-Managing Director Mike Doryen said in a DayLight interview the regulator would begin auctioning logs that month. “We… will continue in the northern region and then go down south and [the] western part,” Doryen said. In the end, nothing happened, as more evidence emerged of companies leaving logs. The Italian-registered African Wood and Lumber left logs on a field in Grand Bassa, with some burned. The Lebanese-owned Masayaha abandoned some 600 nearby. At least 500 Sing Africa logs rotted outside of Buchanan alongside hundreds of logs other companies dashed. Elsewhere, a DayLight investigation uncovered about 5,000 logs abandoned by the International Consultant Capital in the Gbi-Doru District, Nimba County. Doryen’s timeframe was legally impossible, and his comments were dishonest—or at least ignorant. Per the regulation, auctioning timber takes months. Moreover, there is no record that the FDA filed a required petition at any circuit court countrywide to seize abandoned logs. Doryen would tell the Associated Press a year later that the FDA had approved exports of abandoned logs outside of the legal process as “part of the learning curve.” In early 2023, the FDA announced it had suspended several companies’ harvesting certificates in Sinoe. The list included Malaysian-listed Mandra, which had abandoned about 7,000 logs, likely the largest The DayLight recorded. “This decision is prompted by the failure of these companies to honor the mandate from the FDA to enrol all logs harvested in LiberTrace,” read an FDA statement. “Companies in both categories, suspended certificates and otherwise, may be subject to further [penalties]…” Again, no public records that show the FDA punished the companies. Unlawful The FDA’s biggest-known abandoned logs lie occurred during last year’s presidential elections. On October 31, it published a notice on suspicion of abandoned logs on its website and ELBC. A week later, the FDA petitioned the Zorzor, Magisterial Court in Lofa County to begin the process. “We hereby request Your Honor and this honorable court for a search and seizure warrant,” read the petition. But that petition was unlawful and may have exposed the FDA’s dishonesty. The abandoned logs regulation requires the FDA to file a seizure application at a circuit court, not a magisterial court. Also, the time interval between the announcement and the petition was short. Per the regulation, the petition should have been filed over a month after several notices. Deputy Managing Director Gertrude Nyaley was one of two attorneys who signed the petition. She was the technical manager of the FDA’s legality verification department (LVD) then.
The DayLight conducts an exclusive interview with Mrs. Loretta Pope-Kai, the Chairperson of the National Civil Society Council of Liberia and Executive Director of the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI). The interview happened on the sidelines of Liberia's Second National Land Conference in Ganta, Nimba County from September 23-27, 2024.
DIYANKPO, Sinoe County – An unsolved boundary issue between two towns in Sinoe and Grand Kru Counties is stalling a clan’s pursuit of a customary land deed. Diyankpo, a town in the Lower Bokon Clan in Jaedae District, Sinoe County, has a boundary dispute with Neeklakpo in Grand Kru County. Lower Bokon is pursuing a customary land deed but has seen its efforts stall due to the disputed area, approximately 8,000 hectares.
The Second Liberian Land Conference has opened in Ganta, Nimba County. Delegates review the legal steps for the acquisition of customary land deeds, which is the main highlight of the Land Rights Act of 2018. The event aims to minimize the cost associated with the deeding process, enhancing communities' participation and ownership, and defining a realistic timeframe for awarding a customary land deed. Delegates also focus on the land rights of women, the youth, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.
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Liberia has made significant strides to ensure its natural resources are managed in a sustainable manner since the end of a brutal 14-year civil war, which ended in 2003. It began with the reform of the country’s forestry sector a year later. The country created a new land law in 2018 that recognizes customary land ownership, has national policies on free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), and the principles and criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). It has its own oil palm strategy

On top of that, the country has already signed onto a horde of international principles. They include 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).

Nana Darko Cobbina, the training facilitator from Proforest, said AFi does not duplicate those efforts. It complements them and links the forestry and agriculture sectors.

“The framework aims to bring greater clarity, consistency, effectiveness, and accountability for supply chain commitments and their implementation and monitoring,” Cobbina told participants. “It embeds common approaches and good practices in standards, tools, policies, and initiatives for responsible production and trade.”

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