Logging Company In Sinoe Abandons Likely 7,000 Logs

April 7, 2023

Top: A drone shot of Mandra`s log yard where hundreds of abandoned logs lay bare in Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/ Derrick Snyder

By Mark B. Newa

GREENVILLE, Sinoe County – Mandra Forestry Liberia, Limited, an Asian company, abandoned an estimated 7,000 logs it harvested between 2019 and 2021, according to The DayLight’s analysis of official records.

During the period, Mandra produced 6,944 logs but exported none, our analysis of records of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) shows. Mandra harvested the logs in the Sewacajua Community Forest in Sinoe County, where it has operated since 2017.

During the 2019-2020 harvesting season, when the global timber market dipped due to the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S.-China trade war, Mandra harvested over 4,500 logs.

This journalist saw huge heaps of logs at Mandra’s log yard in Greenville in January. A good number of the wood brandishing “Sewacajua,” spread across the quiet field had already decayed. Earthmovers and timber jacks were at different positions.

Under Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products, logs should be declared abandoned when they remain at a location between 15 (three weeks) and 180 working days (about six months). By this definition, Mandra abandoned all the logs in question latest June last year.

Our calculation did not include trees Mandra cut in 2018, some parts of 2019 and last year. The Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI) was unclear on Mandra’s production and export figures covering the period. Moreover, the FDA does not publish these records and did not grant The DayLight’s request for the information, a violation of several provisions of forestry legal frameworks. Subsequently, we obtained the information for this story from elsewhere.

Mandra’s abandoned logs are likely to be higher than 6,944. The company co-operates in two large-scale logging concessions in River Cess and Nimba Counties. The LEITI did not separate Mandra’s Sewacajua figures from the two other concessions. A 2020 investigation report by the FDA found that Mandra and its partner EJ &J Investment Corporation abandoned 65 first-class logs in River Cess.

Mandra Plantations Liberia Limited of the Virgin Islands owns Mandra’s largest shares (99.7 percent), according to its article of incorporation. Sio Kai Sing, a Malaysian, holds 0.1 percent of the shares; Tea Sin Sing, also a Malaysian, has 0.1 percent; and Tang Kwok Ben, a Hong Konger, holds the remaining 0.1 percent. It signed a 15-year agreement with the Secawajua Community Forest, covering 31,986 hectares in Sinoe’s Seekon, Pyne, Wedjah and Juarzon Districts.

A collage of logs Mandra abandoned at its log yard in Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/ James Harding Giahyue

Mandra`s campsite in Secawajua, Sinoe County in 2018. The DayLight/ James Harding Giahyue

Abandoned Logs Regulation

Augustine Johnson, a Liberian who serves as Mandra`s general manager, wrongly claimed that the logs in Greenville were not abandoned because they had a long lifespan and that he had already paid taxes for them.

“Before you talk about abandonment. I am expecting a ship to come to Greenville by the second week in next month to get the logs out,” Johnson told The DayLight in a phone interview.

“Apart from logs that are to be shipped, I can take logs for my own domestic use, I can take logs to saw into pieces and even bring it to Monrovia to…build my campsite. The ones that rot are used for domestic purposes,” Johnson added.

A former FDA geographic information system (GIS) technician, Johnson’s comments are not backed by facts. Payment of taxes is a requirement to obtain a log-export permit. However, taxes have nothing to do with the abandonment of logs. Rather, abandonment largely depends on the time logs stay at a particular location, according to the regulation. For instance, the woods in Mandra’s log yard in Greenville should have only stayed there for 180 days, the same as the ones Johnson said were at the Port of Greenville. Also, the FDA would have to reenter the logs in question into the FDA log-tracking system called LiberTrace.

Johnson is adamant about his wrong understanding or lack of awareness of the regulation. “The logs been there for over 30 working days doesn`t matter, or been there for I80 days it doesn`t matter. They are all Ekki logs with a huge lifespan,” Johnson said and hung up the phone. He had insisted on educating this reporter, not the other way around.

The FDA did not answer questions The DayLight sent to the agency for comment on this story. This journalist sent the email on March 30 to Managing Director Mike Doryen, copying Joseph Tally, his deputy for operations.

The regulation mandates the FDA to investigate the alleged abandonment of the logs in seven days after notification. Thereafter, it must declare the logs abandoned, petition a court to auction the wood and fine the company involved. If the company claims, it must pay administrative fees and redeem them. The FDA established the regulation in 2017 after provisions of another regulation proved not enough to prevent the waste of forest resources.

But despite years of notifications, including one from within the agency, the FDA has failed to take any legal, public actions. Last year, it said it would begin the process to auction abandoned logs during the dry season but has not done that. The situation has led to a loss of revenue for the Liberian government—and the media.

A 2020 FDA investigation found companies were abandoning logs because they were harvesting logs without first finding buyers. It also blamed irregular monitoring, lack of logistics for field officers and poor road networks for the problem.

“Logging contract holders are not doing much to minimize the incidence of abandoned logs,” the report said. “Much needed revenue… has been lost due to the unprecedented abandonment of the assorted round logs…”

The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

Company Abandons Nearly 600 Logs Amid Illegal Logging Spree

September 27, 2022

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Top: Logs abandoned by Masayaha Logging Company in Bokay Town, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a series on a string of illegal activities by Masayaha Logging Company, which operates in Grand Bassa County.

BOKAY TOWN, Grand Bassa County – Between 2020 and last year, Masayaha Logging Company harvested a number of red hardwoods in a string of illegal operations spanning several villages outside its contract area, the Worr Community Forest.

But while Masayaha was stealing the logs, the Lebanese-owned firm company abandoned 595 logs it harvested between 2019 and 2021, further investigation into its operations shows. It cut 1,246 logs but exported only 651, according to FDA’s records of the company’s production and export.

We counted over 200 of the logs on a field next to the Bokay Town market in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. Their markings were clear: “MLC” for Masayaha Logging Company. Some of the woods had decayed and bonded with that environment. Some were in ponds with quacking frogs, others overgrown by grass with human feces on them.

Residents The DayLight interviewed said Masayaha transported some of the logs there two years ago.

“They brought these ones here in 2020,” a seller who does not want to be named over fears of reprisal, said, pointing to a pile of blackened, wet woods.

Under the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products, logs are abandoned if they are left unattended between 15 and 180 working days, depending on their location. In this case, the logs were abandoned latest as of June last year.

Deserted logs are some of the most common violations in the forestry sector. The regulation mandates the FDA to investigate for seven working days after being told of an abandoned log situation. Thereafter, it must seek a court order to auction the woods following months of mandatory public notice.

There is plenty of evidence that the FDA is aware logging companies have abandoned thousands of logs across the country—including Masayaha—but has done nothing in keeping with the regulation.

In August 2020, the agency investigated Masayaha and several other companies operating in Grand Bassa, River Cess and Nimba and found a sea of abandoned logs.

“Logging contract holders are not doing much to minimize [the] incidence of abandoned logs. Logging companies have left [a] huge quantity of assorted round logs unattended or abandoned at various bush landings and log yards over the years…,” FDA investigators said at the time in an internal report seen by The DayLight. “Valuable time species are continuously being harvested by logging companies without first securing sales contracts, only to leave those logs unattended.” A log yard is an open field where companies keep logs before export.

Logs abandoned by Masayaha Logging Company on a field next to the Bokay Town market in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

The report said the government of Liberia was losing revenues required for national development.

Alvin Fiske, a local who heads the community forest leadership, said the company executives told him it had not found a buyer for the logs. “Costumers come and buy some and some remain on the ground,” he said.

In June earlier this year, the Managing Director of the FDA Mike Doryen granted a rare interview with The DayLight in which he unlawfully claimed the agency would have auctioned abandoned logs across the country that month.

There were no records the FDA made binding public service announcements on Masayaha’s abandoned logs or a petition from the agency at the circuit court in Buchanan to seize and auction the woods, some three years since the company ditched the first load of the woods.

In addition to its failure to seize and auction the logs, the FDA has not punished Masayaha over the logs. The regulation was created in 2017 to curb the waste of forest resources after a previous regulation proved inadequate in addressing the problem. It was part of Liberia’s response to the global call for the sustainable use of forests amid climate change.

FDA should have fined the company three times the price set by the agency by the volume of the logs at Bokay Town alone, according to the current regulation.

Our analysis of Masayaha’s production and export records shows that it abandoned 6,814.951 cubic meters of logs between 2019 and last year. Markings on the logs at the Bokay Town market indicate the majority are first-class woods by the FDA’s standard.

Some of the abandoned logs at the Bokay Town market, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

While the company has struggled to export the logs it produced, it has continued to harvest additional logs. The markings on logs at the company’s headquarters in Saul Town, Compound Number One B indicate they were harvested this year and contain some of the first-class species we saw at Bokay Town.

That is a breach of the regulation, which calls on the agency to disapprove of the harvesting or export permits of companies that abandon logs on a large scale.

It is not the only time the FDA has reneged on punishing Masayaha for a violation. During the same period the firm abandoned the woods, it harvested logs way about 100 kilometers outside its concession, a recent investigation by The DayLight revealed.

The company had signed illegal agreements with a number of towns in the Doe Clan of Compound Number One A. Several chiefs and elders who helped seal the illegal deals admitted in a dozen of interviews with us. Villagers said the company cut only ekki logs, red hardwoods used for building railroads and bridges.

Masayaha’s production record between 2020 and 2021 seemingly backs that claim. It exported 360 ekki woods during that period, compared to just 17 in the previous term.

Evidence shows that the FDA was also aware of the violation but did not punish the company. Investigators of the leaked FDA report recommended “appropriate” action against Masayaha for that offense. Also, Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), a Switzerland-based firm that developed Liberia’s log-tracking system or LiberTrace, also reported the illegal operation.

The FDA has not sought a court order to confiscate and auction the illegally harvested logs Masayaha cut outside its contract area. It did not fine the company two times and four times the prevailing international price of the volume of logs it harvested in 2020 and last year, respectively, in line with the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timbers and Timber Products.

The agency did not reply to emailed queries for comments on the issue.

Ali Harkous, Masayaha’s owner and CEO also did not respond to The DayLight’s quetions placed to him via WhatsApp.

The Forestry Development Authority has approved Masayaha’s harvest of logs amid its abandonment of 595 logs. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Zahn Dehydugar contributed to this report.

The story is a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

Company Abandons ‘over 700’ Logs As FDA Looks on

September 9, 2022

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Top: Some of the logs Bargor & Bargor/Greenwood abandoned in Bokomu District, Gbarpolu County in August 2022. The DayLight/Gabriel M. Dixon

By Gabriel M. Dixon

BOKOMU, Gbarpolu County – It was a late Thursday evening in July 2019, excitement circled the air in the town of Nyeamah and neighboring villages. Their long-awaited dream of paved roads would soon become a reality years after welcoming a forest concession.

“It was a great thing for us and we were all happy about it,” said John Flomo, a member of the community’s forest leadership.

Bargor & Bargor Enterprise Inc. had struggled with its operations. Now partnering with Greenwood Resource Company, a Liberian-Ivorian firm, brought back life in that part of the Bokomu District. That was, at least, what residents thought.

But the company abandoned over 700 logs in the bush few months after their arrival, dashing the hope of residents.

“They left them in the bush and they got damaged,” Flomo told The DayLight. “Each time they (logging company) do something and we tell the FDA, they (FDA) can delay it. So, we look at it that the company is not for us, it is for the government; that’s [the] government that brought them.”

This reporter visited the logging site of Bargor & Bargor and saw scores of decayed logs. Some were lying along a neglected, grassy road in an open field villager said served as the company’s log yard. We climbed a steep hill into a forest and arrived at another place with huge piles of logs camouflaged by undergrowth of trees and grass. A look around the site shows that no one has been there in recent times before our visit, at least for a year. It was difficult to even take photos. My tour guard cleared around some of the logs to help me take photos. Some of the decayed logs still held on to their tags, indicating that they had been tracked by the Forestry Development Authority (FDA).

Yusuf Konneh and Louis Diomande, the two owners of Greenwood, did not respond to queries for comment on the matter. Efforts to contact Alfred Bargor, the CEO of Bargor & Bargor, did not materialize. His email address has been disabled and his contact number did not ring.

Bargor & Bargor left in the forest in Bokomu District, Gbarpolu County in 2021. The DayLight/Henry Gboluma

The companies’ executives could face legal actions, as abandoning logs is an offense. The Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timbers and Timber Products considers woods abandoned when they are left unattended between 15 and 180 working days. Penalties include two times the volume of the logs in question by the legal fees for their stumps. Stumpage fees are calculated based on percentages of the international prices of logs which vary from one class to another. The regulation was formulated to minimize the waste of forest resources and compel legal compliance in the harvesting and shipment of logs.

The FDA has taken no legal action despite being knowledgeable of the matter. “Currently, 716 logs harvested are in the bush spoiling,” read a 2021 letter the community wrote to the agency’s Managing Director Mike Doryen, seen by the DayLight.

The law requires the FDA to investigate a complaint or suspicion of abandonment when notified. Afterward, it should have sought a court order to auction the woods after a period of multiple public notices.

Ruth Varney, the forest ranger responsible for the western region, declined to speak on the matter.

In April earlier this year, FDA asked logging companies to “declare all trees fell in their resources area in LiberTrace consistent with the regulation…” Speaking to The DayLight two months later, Doryen said the agency would have started auctioning abandoned logs countrywide in June 2022. LiberTrace is the system through which the FDA tracks trees from harvest to shipment.

“We… will continue in the northern region and then go down south and western part,” Doryen said at the time. “We are dealing with the issues of abandoned logs in a holistic manner. It is not just TSCs but community forests and forest management contract [areas].”

That has yet to happen.

Henry Gboluma contributed to this story. It was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

Liberian Loggers Leave Logs in Cape Mount

September 9, 2022

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Top: Rotten logs in the Gola Konneh District, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By Varney Kamara

ZIMMIDANDAI – A Liberian-owned company has left an unspecified number of logs in a logging concession area in Grand Cape Mount County, community leaders have said.

In 2009, Bulgar & Vincent Timber Company cut trees in a logging concession in the Porkpa District—known in the logging industry as Timber Sale Contract Area 10 (TSC A-10). However, in 2015, it pulled out of the area, leaving the woods to rot, according to Dao Sheriff, a member of the community’s leadership of the forest in an interview in a town called Zimmidandai.

“Most of the logs B&V harvested here were left in the bush,” said Sheriff. “After the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the company returned and cut several logs in 2015, and left this place in the same 2015.”

Sheriff did not say the exact quantity of woods B&V harvested. The company also had some logs in its log yard in the Po River area, according to a July 2017 handwritten letter to the FDA, seen by The DayLight. We could not independently verify the information, as the road to the forest was inaccessible due to years of abandonment and perennial rainfall.

B&V blames the government for the abandonment of the logs.

“We left logs there because the government failed to fix the road. We did not take them out because of this condition,” said Emmanuel Vincent, the CEO of the company, in a phone interview.” “It is the government that failed to do what it is supposed to do.”

That claim is incorrect. It was actually the company’s responsibility to “recondition and maintain roads adjacent [to] the contract area,” according to the agreement.

In June, the FDA announced the auctioning of abandoned logs across the country, including those in TSC A10. “The exercise will continue in the northern region and then go down south and western part,” said Mike Doryan, FDA’s Managing Director.

While that exercise has yet to be carried out, it does not apply here legally. Having been harvested in 2015, the FDA cannot obtain a court order to auction the woods under the current Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timbers and Timber Products. The regulation in place when the harvesting was done narrowed the definition of abandonment as only trees cut outside concession and lack tracking number. The current regulation was formulated in 2017 after the previous one proved ineffective in curbing the waste of forest resources.

Legal issues aside, there is no evidence that the FDA has done anything about deserted logs nationwide. The DayLight has investigated several incidents of abandoned logs in this region, the Gola Konneh District next door, and elsewhere in Grand Bassa, Lofa and Nimba. Doryen’s claim to auction the woods in June was unlawful as it takes months of legal formalities to do so.

‘They…damaged our forest’

The agreement between B&V mandates the company to pay US$1 per cubic meter of logs it harvested and US$1.25 for land rental fees. It was required to build schools, clinics, handpumps, and latrines for villagers but it did not deliver them. Its only project, a USD$4,018 guesthouse in Zimmidandai, has not been completed, according to a report released on Wednesday by the National Benefit Sharing Trust Board (NBSTB), which secures communities’ benefits and oversees their expenditure.

Vincent admits being indebted to the community but blames the Ebola epidemic and the coronavirus pandemic. “We lost heavily in that area,” Vincent said. “We left most of our heavy machines in there. Besides, the government restrained our operation because of the outbreaks. How could we have sold logs to pay benefits? We were practically closed down.” The FDA did not return queries for comment on Vincent’s claim but health authorities imposed some restrictions to contain both outbreaks.

It was unclear how much the company owes because the government has not remitted all the money logging companies have paid them for communities. TSC A10 received US$460 last year as part of the overdue payment and could receive twice that sum from the US$401,000 the government paid to communities recently.

Zimmidandai in Porkpa District, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding

By the way, that has not changed the gloom aura logging arouses in Zimmidandai. After years of failure, the government of Liberia finally canceled all 11 TSCs across the country, leaving thousands of United States dollars owed them unpaid and projects unconducted.

The FDA promised to work with the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee (NUCFDC) to address fees owed TSCs. Doryen reechoed that in our interview in June. However, the two entities have not done any work since the meeting, according to Andrew Zelemen, the national facilitator of the group.

“They came and damaged our forest and left us with no development,” Sheriff said. “Now, the government has canceled TSCs, and they are gone. All I can say to you is that we are inside it.”

Company Abandons Some 2,500 Logs

July 24, 2022

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Abandoned logs — A pile of logs abandoned by Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited

Top: Some of the logs Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited abandoned at its sawmill in Zorzor, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

Editor’s Note: In this second part of a series on Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited, we reveal how the Singaporean logging company abandoned a large number of logs in Lofa and Grand Bassa.

BALAGWALAZU, Lofa County – Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited, a Singaporean logging company, might have harvested about US$2.2 million worth of logs outside its concession in Bluyeama Community Forest mainly between 2018 and last year.

But it has abandoned about 2,500 logs it cut within that period, including logs the company illegally harvested, further investigation The DayLight conducted into the firm’s operations discovered. Around a fifth of the logs have already decayed.

Legally, logs are abandoned when they are left unattended between 15 and 180 days, depending on their location and the result of a three-month government-run inquiry. That means even logs Sing Africa felled in December last year, the latest of its production, are abandoned.

Our calculations of the company’s official production and export records between 2019 and last year show that it has 1,426 logs that have not been exported. Having only obtained production and shipment data in volume between 2017 and 2018, we estimated the difference of 10,761 cubic meters to be 1070 logs.

The logs are scattered at different locations. Most of them are in the company’s sawmill in Balagwalazu, with some in its log yards on the Gbarnga-Lofa highway and in Grand Bassa County.

We counted about 500 woods—several with Sing Africa markings—in a large open field in Buchanan, all of which have already decayed. Their remnants created sponge-like coatings everywhere as if the area were a graveyard for trees. You could take the cawing of birds that pierced the quietude of the deserted area for a eulogy.

“It’s not even good for charcoal now,” said one woman, who did not want to be named due to safety reasons.

The members of the leadership of Bluyeama Community Forest, who monitor the company and have records of all its operations, corroborated our findings. Gayflorson Korballah, one of Bluyeama’s leaders, pointed out huge piles of logs that had been harvested in 2017 and 2018. Alexander Songu, the head of the leadership, said most of the ones in the log yard had been harvested in 2019.

We traced some of the logs to the company’s official production records from their tracking numbers.

Tracking logs is a major component of postwar forestry reform in Liberia. Every tree felled must have an identification number that can be used to track logs from harvest to export.

The illegal logging and the failure of the company to pay the community its benefits have left locals frustrated. Since 2009, villagers have had the right to manage their forests alongside the government. Bluyeama, a 49,444 hectare woodland in the Zorzor District bordering Gbarpolu, was certified in 2011.

Following a difficult relationship with Ecowood, a previous logging company, it signed an agreement with Sing Africa in January 2016. But the company has not lived up to its promises. It owes both the Liberian government and the community US$121,271, according to the record of a meeting of players in the forestry industry on the implementation of Liberia’s Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union official records released in March earlier this year. That is one of the highest debts any company owes in the entire forestry sector.

Loss of Revenue

The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has known about the abandoned-logs issue since, at least, two years ago, evidence shows. In August 2020, an inquest by the agency found that Sing Africa abandoned 675 pieces of ekki wood (Lophira alata), an expensive, first-class log, in Buchanan. It also found that Star Wood—run by the Guptas, the Singaporean family that owns Sing Africa—left 465 logs at that same location.

Some abandoned logs in a log yard on the Gbarnga-Lofa highway, owned by Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

“Logging contract holders are not doing much to minimize [the] incident of abandoned logs,” the report, leaked to us, said at the time. It said companies were harvesting logs without first securing sales contracts.

“Much-needed revenues that the national government requires for national development have been lost due to the unprecedented abandonment of assorted round logs by logging companies,” it added.

But it was only two months ago that the FDA started to take action. In April, it gave all companies a one-month period to declare the logs they had not shipped. Managing Director Mike Doryen told The DayLight a countrywide auctioning of abandoned logs would have begun at the end of that month, which did not happen.

“[Bluyeama] is an area of concentration for ourselves,” Doryen said. “Those who did not remove their logs as per the stipulated time, the lawyer will now go to the court to seek judicial actions to have the logs confiscated the auctioned.”

Doryen’s timeline for an auction was impossible. It takes several months of court orders and required notices for abandoned logs to be auctioned, according to the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products. There were no records of such order at the circuit courts in Voinjama and Buchanan.

It was until earlier this month that the FDA began to inquire countrywide about abandoned logs, following three reports by The DayLight on the subject. Harris Zeah, the ranger responsible for Lofa, Bong and Margibi, was suspended and replaced a week after our report of illegal logging in Bluyeama. “Management’s action is predicated upon your consistent failure to meet work plan objectives, including your failure to adequately and timely address noncompliance issues in… the Bluyeama Community Forest,” Zeah’s suspension letter read.

Mukesh Gupta, Sing Africa’s CEO and head of the Guptas, denied any wrongdoing, blaming the coronavirus pandemic.

“We were loading by containers but when the Covid-19 hit, there was no buyer,” Gupta told The DayLight in an interview at the company’s Rehab office in Paynesville. “Covid-19 has damaged us so much. I think I should be supported, given the kind of investments we have made in the community.”

Though the pandemic shattered supply chains worldwide, especially in the Asian markets Sing Africa exports its logs, the company continued to cut trees. Between 2019 and 2020, it harvested 2,000 logs, according to official records. And while it only exported 189 logs during that time, it added 166 logs the following year. It did not apply for force majeure, a legal recourse companies take to address things like disease outbreaks, conflicts and natural disasters.

“We never cut the trees thinking that they would be abandoned. We cut the trees thinking that Covid-19 would go away soon. We are surprised that Covid-19 has stayed on for long,” Gupta added.

Sing Africa faces millions of United States dollars in fines and could be one of the heaviest in the Liberian logging industry’s history. Abandonment of woods in log yards, sawmills and ports carries a fine of three times the international prices of each class of logs.

The regulation was created to prevent waste of forest resources and to make sure companies harvest logs sustainably. It replaced an earlier regulation that narrowed the definition of abandonment to logs found outside a concession, lacking tracking barcodes. Its establishment in 2017 came amid a crackdown on illegal logging by importing countries, including the European Union.

Waste of the logs from Bluyeama adds to the Zorzor region’s forest loss. From 2002 to last year, the district lost 20.6-kilo hectares of humid primary forest, according to Global Forest Watch, which tracks deforestation worldwide. That number is one of the highest among community forests, according to a study by the FDA and the World Resource Institute, a global research charity. Tree cover loss refers to the removal of forest canopy by people or nature.

Piles of decayed logs at a log yard in Buchanan owned by Sing Africa. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Zahn Dehydugar of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists contributed to this report.

The fund for the story was provided by Fern. The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over its content.

Fugitive Businessman Abandons Logs in Cape Mount

June 19, 2022

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Top: Logs, abandoned by Alma Wood in Vanjah Village, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue and Varney Kamara

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a series on the aftermaths of timber sale contracts (TSCs) across the country, which were canceled in March 2021 following years of illegitimacy.

VANJAH VILLAGE – The company of a Lebanese businessman fleeing the law abandoned an unspecified number of logs in Grand Cape Mount County, with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) doing little to address the problem, an investigation by The DayLight has found.

In 2018, Alma Wood Corporation (Liberia), co-owned by El Zein Hassan, abandoned the woods in a small-scale logging concession in the Gola Konneh and Porkpa Districts of Grand Cape Mount County. Hassan fled the country the following year over a debt lawsuit with Afriland Bank, leaving the logs unattended in different locations in the area.

“There are many logs left abandoned and damaged in the bush,” Aaron Quaye, a community leader, told The DayLight. There are over 5,000 cubic meters [of logs] in the forests.”

This reporter saw scores of woods scattered across the forest, the company’s log yard in a town called Mafalla, another town named Gohn and Vanjah Village. Some locals were burning the logs to make charcoal in Mafalla. Quaye said there were more logs in forests but The DayLight could not reach them due to the difficult road network in that region.

DayLight’s calculation of the company’s official production and export records between 2018 and 2020 shows that it did not ship 519.267 cubic meters of logs it harvested in that area. That number could be more, given that the records only show the company’s 2018 production in the concession affecting Vanjah Village and Benduma town, where Quaye lives, not the forest around Bong Village, where Alma Wood also operated.

Woods are abandoned if they are “unattended” between 15 and 180 working days depending on their location, according to Regulation on Abandoned Log, Timber and Timber Products. It was created in 2017 and repealed certain sections of Regulation 108-07 that narrowed the definition of “abandoned logs” as logs outside a contract area without tracking barcodes.

The regulation requires the FDA to notify the public over a long period once it learns of the situation. Ruth Varney, the agency’s representative in the western region, confirmed to DayLight the community had told her about the abandoned logs.

Logs Alma Wood was abandoned in a forest near Vanjah Village in the Porkpa District of Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

In April earlier this year, the FDA gave all logging companies one month to declare logs they have harvested as it takes inventory of probably abandoned logs countrywide. That deadline expired a month ago and the agency said it would begin auctioning the woods this month.

“Those who did not remove their logs as per the stipulated time, the lawyer will now go to the court to seek judicial action to have the logs confiscated the auctioned,” said FDA’s Managing Director Mike Doryen in a rare interview with The DayLight. “That is a problem that we must solve.”

It was unclear whether the FDA has exhausted a mandatory process in the regulation to auction the controversial logs, taking 114 working days or just under six months. Within this time, it needs to investigate, possibly remove the woods to a safe location and make several public notices through the media and its website. It is only when no one claims the logs after that process that the FDA can obtain a court warrant for the auction. Doryen did not show any evidence that these things have been done.

Locals are using some of the woods abandoned by Alma Wood in its log yard in Mafalla, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Besides, Alma Wood’s own legal nightmare makes it even harder for a normal auction. Earlier this year, the FDA disapproved a deal for the logs to be sold to East End, a company owned by former Minister of Justice Cllr. Benedict Sannoh, over Alma Wood’s lawsuit. The agency learned that the logs had been used as collateral for Sky Insurance Company to pay the bail for Hassan’s release by the Commercial Court in Monrovia.

Hassan had taken a US643,000 loan from Afriland Bank and missed several payment deadlines, according to several people familiar with the case (all parties to the case denied The DayLight access to court filings and an interview). Hassan would escape the country thereafter. Efforts by The DayLight to contact him or representatives of the company were not successful.

It is not just Hassan’s dealing with the court that is unlawful. Alma Wood’s operations in Porkpa and Gola Konneh are also illegal. Five-thousand-hectare logging concessions, known across the forestry sector as timber sale contracts (TSCs), are meant for only firms with at least 51 percent Liberian shareholdings. The company’s two operations in Cape Mount were some of five illegal deals the FDA signed or sanctioned that we and the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ) exposed as part of an investigation on TSC across the country. The one in Quaye’s community is called TSC A11 and the other one is TSC A16. Hassan and Radwan Darwiche, a Senegalese man, equally share the company’s 500 stocks, according to its legal documents. It had been subcontracted to the two TSCs in 2016 by Bassa Logging Company, a Liberian firm, and Sun Yeun, a 98 percent Chinese-owned firm, which also breaks the National Forestry Reform Law.

The two TSCs and nine others in Cape Mount, Grand Bassa, Gbarpolu and Bong County overstayed their legal timeframe of at least five years. All lasted for more than a decade combining to establish some of the most chaotic forest licenses of the postwar era.

Josephus Bank, the CEO and co-owner (one percent shareholder) of Sun Yeun claimed that the company had changed shareholders in an interview with us but did not present any evidence. The company has not changed shareholders since its formation in 2008, the documents we obtained from the Liberian Business Registry show. He blamed the FDA for the abandonment of the logs.

Quaye said Clarence Massaquoi, the CEO and owner of Bassa Logging, visited the forest last month with an “investor.” Massaquoi did not respond to specific queries on the matter in a WhatsApp chat.

“FDA contributed to those logs being there today. When Alma Wood’s contract expired, I wrote the FDA informing it about logs being [in the forest]. FDA delayed and I wanted to sell at the time,” Banks said in that interview relative to the logs in TSC A16. The FDA refuted that claim.

A pile of logs that Alma Wood abandoned in Vanjah Village, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Massaquoi faces a heavy penalty to redeem the logs amid Hassan’s escape, under the regulation on abandoned logs. He is required to first pay an administrative fee associated with, including the probable transport, storage, security and public notification associated with the woods. Penalties include payment of two times the volume of the logs in question by the legal fees for their stumps. Stumpage fees are calculated based on percentages of the international prices of categories of logs. The regulation was formulated to minimize the waste of forest resources and compel legal compliance in the harvesting and shipment of logs.

Quaye, who savored an opportunity to join his community’s forest management leadership in 2016, just before Alma Wood signed an agreement with them, said they were the biggest losers in everything. FDA had canceled all TSCs in March last year but did not see to it that communities get their benefits, leaving Alma Wood indebted to him and other villagers. Bassa Logging/Alma Wood owes affected communities US$56,550 in land-related fees, according to official documents. It did not pay villagers a cent for the trees it felled, fees for scholarships and a handpump, Quaye said.

“We regret all these things that are happening to our community,” Quaye said. “We are regretting because it takes so many years for trees to mature in the forest. Our forest is depleted without any benefit that communities can point to.”

The FDA told an annual meeting of forestry players in March earlier this year that it would work with the union of community leaderships to address overdue payments and other benefits. He restated that in our interview with him.

“We didn’t do that (addressing benefits and other issues),” Doryen said, “but we will do it now.”

This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ) of Liberia and The DayLight.

FDA Watches As Company Abandons ‘5,000’ Logs in Nimba

May 3, 2022

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Top: The International Consultant Capital has abandoned thousands of logs in the Gbi-Doru District. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

GBI-DORU DISTRICT, Nimba County – Sylvester Garsaynee might have been elected chairman of a group that represents the interest of locals in a logging concession in one of Liberia’s most forested regions. However, he has been welcomed by an estimated 5,000 abandoned logs and outstanding payments and projects, which burdened his predecessor in the last three years.

Between 2018 and 2019, the International Consultant Capital (ICC) felled the logs in the Gbi-Doru Administrative District and the Gbier & Gblor Chiefdom. But it abandoned the logs in the forest ever since amid a row with the community over a bridge, with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) taking no actions mandated by forestry laws and regulations to avoid waste of the woods.

ICC had signed a social agreement with villagers in 2016 as part of its 25-year concession with the Liberian government in 2009, known across the logging industry as Forest Management Contract K or FMC-K Nimba. It covers 127,842 hectares in the northeastern county and extends 40,887 hectares in River Cess and 98,181 hectares in Grand Gedeh. The contract lasts for 25 years but affected towns and villagers must elect new members to their community forest management committee every five years and review their agreement with the company. That is how Garsaynee entered the fray.

“The first thing we are going to do is to make sure the logs are transported from the bush,” Garsaynee told The DayLight in a mobile phone interview from Glahn’s Town, the headquarters of the community forest leadership.

“After that, we will work with the company to make sure it pays the cubic meter fees, the scholarship fees and other fees it owes us,” he added. In forestry, cubic meter fees are the product of the total diameters of all the harvested logs and a particular rate set in an agreement, US$2.25 in this case.

The past leadership of the community had demanded the German company repaired the facility after a log bridge the company built collapsed. The metal passage over Gwen Creek connects the only other road in the area. But when efforts by the pair to sign a memorandum of understanding over the bridge failed, the community asked the FDA to auction the logs and share the proceeds with the community.

“We are of the conviction that those resources are meant to enhance the livelihood of the communities and to generate taxes for the national government,” Jerry Gbaye Sr., whom Garsaynee would replace, wrote in a letter to FDA Managing Director Mike Doryen in November last year. That request was not granted.

Though the logs are abandoned, it is much harder for them to be auctioned, according to FDA’s Regulation 116-17. Depending on their location, logs are abandoned if they are left unattended between 15 and 180 working days, the law requires. But the FDA can only auction it if no one claims them following months of the legal notice and a court warrant, which our investigation showed has not been done in this case.

The FDA investigated the situation itself in August 2020 as part of an “assessment of abandoned logs in concession areas in region three” (Grand Bassa River Cess and Nimba). It found that ICC had abandoned 3,066 pieces or 18,272.158 cubic meters of logs and that some of the unattended logs had been “sold to a local sawmill/mini-mart operator.

“Logging contract holders are not doing much to minimize the incidence of abandoned logs,” the report said at the time. “Much needed revenue that government requires for national development has been lost due to the unprecedented abandonment of the assorted round logs by logging companies.”

The DayLight could not independently verify the number of abandoned logs. The FDA denied us access to the company’s production record, despite forestry laws and regulations guaranteeing public access to such information. Gbaye and other community leaders we interviewed put the number to over 7,000 but did not show any proof.

Also, the FDA imposed no fines on ICC for abandoning the logs, a violation of Regulation 116-17. The regulation calls for grave penalties for an act that “intentionally or negligently causes any logs, timber or timber products to become abandoned.” Penalties include a payment three times the prices of the total volume of species of abandoned logs at the world market price and forfeiture of either a company’s harvesting or export certificate. Created in October 2017, the statute’s purpose is to minimize the waste of forest resources and compel legal compliance in the harvesting and shipment of logs, timbers and timber projects.

‘We are waiting’

In March, the community and company met to resolve their dispute, according to minutes of a mediatory meeting, conducted by the Liberia Timber Association, the FDA and the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee.

Chris Bailey, ICC’s representative at the resolution meeting in Glahn’s Town, accused the community of demanding the company to pay US$1 million before using the bridge, according to the minutes.

Gbaye denies that accusation, saying the amount was an estimated cost of the project, not a fee for the community.

Garsaynee said the company agreed to repair the bridge and conducted a feasibility study on the facility shortly after he replaced Gbaye. “We are waiting on them,” he said. “Everything is now in their hands.”

The DayLight has reached out to Cesare Colombo, ICC’s CEO, for comments. ICC is owned by the estate of the late Liberian businessman Mulbah Willie and the Liberia Wood Industry, a subsidiary of the Liberian Investment Association Limited and Nimarks International Corporation, the articles of incorporation of the companies show.

A log is seen with a chain of custody identification number in Forest Management Contract Area K – Nimba County the International Consultant Capital (ICC) operates. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Apart from the abandoned logs, ICC has failed to live up to a social agreement it signed with the community. It has not paved a major road linking Glahn’s Town to Dorgbor Town, Gbi-Doru’s headquarters. It has yet to provide four overdue handpumps as per the deal. It has ceased to pay an annual US$6,500 for scholarships since 2018 and has not held mandatory, quarterly meetings with locals since 2019, our investigation showed.

Beginning 2020, the community had written Colombo, FDA, and other stakeholders in the forestry sector on the overdue payments and projects, letters The DayLight saw indicate. In a letter to Doryen on April 16 last year, the community said ICC’s failure to meet up with its obligations “has posed a severe embarrassment to communities’ projects, [ongoing] construction and… projects that should have been already in process.” Overdue payment is a violation of forestry laws and regulations. It is a pre-qualification requirement for licenses, shipment permits, and a ground for the cancellation of contracts.

Bailey blames the company’s failure on illicit chainsaw millers and farming activities in the contracted forest, according to minutes of the mediatory meeting. He falsely claims that the Glahn’s-Town-Dorgbor-Town road is not in their agreement. “The road will commence from Glahn’s Town to Dorgbor Town in the second phase of the social contract…,” the agreement says.

There were signs things are not going as planned following the March meeting of the community and the company. The parties agreed in their Glahn’s Town meeting that they would have met in Monrovia by now to continue their settlement but that has yet to happen.

The FDA did not reply to our queries for comments. We wrote Doryen a letter to that effect in January this year but did not get a reply. That was after we had emailed the top managers of the agency on the matter in December last year. Weedor Gray, the technical manager of the community forestry department, also did not respond to queries regarding the outstanding meeting between the community and the company.

Funding for this story was provided by the Civil Society Independent Forest Monitors (CS-IFM). The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over its content.

Locals Demand Contract Review After 5 Years of Problems

December 9, 2024

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Top: Korninga wants the FDA to supervise the review of a logging contract between it and Coveiyala Investment Enterprise. The DayLight/James Giahyue

By Emmanuel Sherman

KORNINGA CHIEFDOM – A Community forest in Gbarpolu County is demanding a review of its contract with a logging company, following five years of stalemate, contrasting with the celebrations that greeted the deal.

Korninga ‘A’ Community Forest and Coveiyala Investment Enterprise signed the 15-year contract in 2019 after the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) certified the community. Korninga leased 48,296 hectares of forest land to Coveiyala for logging purposes. However, the parties have not reviewed the contract as required by law.

“We are seeking renegotiation,” says Emery Ciapha, Korninga’s chief officer. “Up to the present, Coveiyala has failed to come and sit with the people of Korninga Community for the review.”

Legal battle

Coveiyala has had an internal conflict for over three years and counting, which has stalled the Korninga contract. In 2022, Lu Li, a Chinese national with 90 percent shares, and Anthony Urey, his Liberian partner and the company’s president, with the remaining shares, got into a fierce legal battle. It led the Commercial Court in Monrovia to halt the company’s operations.

The court lifted the injunction following an agreement between Messrs. Lu and Urey earlier this year. After that, Coveiyala began to focus on the contract’s renewal, with a series of communication exchanges with locals in May.

In an October letter, Urey suggested that the review be done in early November and the signing on the 15^th of that month.

But Ciapha rejected his suggestion because Urey had allegedly singlehandedly made the decision. “It was not signed or attested. It is not an individual that the Korninga Authorized Community Forest is working with. We are working with an entity called Coveiyala, [not with Mr. Urey as an individual],” Ciapha tells The DayLight in a phone interview.

Urey refutes Ciapha’s comments, saying he often writes on behalf of Coveiyala. He also argues that Korninga did not raise any contention with him when he sent the letter.

“If it were so, they should have written me back and informed me and say, ‘Mr. Urey, it should be this way or that way,’” says Urey via phone. “If there was any document, definitely, I was going respond to it. I was going to say, “Ok, I accept it,’ and the three parties could sign it.”

Amid the disagreement, Korninga has asked the FDA to review the contract, Coveiyala’s debts, and the company’s failure to implement contractual projects.

Coveiyala owed the community US$102,304.75 in land rental, US$30,000 in scholarship fees, and unspecified harvesting and other fees, based on the contract, the community and documents.

Regarding projects, Coveiyala did not build health facilities and a wood science college as promised. It built two latrines but Korninga rejected them based on the construction materials.

“None of the promises made were actualized by the company during the five years the company has operated in the community. Based on this, we are calling for an immediate review of the agreement,” Korninga’s letter to the FDA read.

Emery Ciapha, the leader of Korninga A Community Forest. The DayLight/James Giahyue

It is unclear how much the Coveiyala owes locals for harvesting. However, before the lawsuit, the company left many logs in the forest and a log yard at Po River outside Monrovia.

Also, in August, Coveiyala sold over 237 cubic meters of logs to Kris Veneer Industries of Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, FDA records show.

Saye Messah, the FDA’s media and communication consultant, did not respond to queries for over a month. However, in a June letter, the FDA urged Korninga to work with the company to find a suitable time to conduct the review.

“Management highly considers your concerns regarding the company’s alleged failure to abide by terms in the contract…. calling for review is by law as stipulated,” the FDA letter reads.

Internal conflicts

Besides the debt and abandoned logs, Korninga’s contract with Coveiyala has been marred by community-based corruption. In early 2022, three members of the community leadership were jailed for allegedly misusing US$76,000. The three men included Johnson Flomo, Austin Kamara, and Dennis Flomo, chief officer, Korninga’s executive committee’s chairman and co-chairman, respectively.

They were immediately suspended after an FDA inquest and the community’s account was frozen. As a result, an interim body was set up to manage the community forest for over two years.

The head of the interim body, Cephas says Coveiyala has to account for the three years it operated the forest.

“Failure to implement those plights would mean termination or cancellation of the agreement.”

This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

FDA Rehires Ex-Manager Disgraced for Alleged Corruption

November 26, 2024

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Top: Mr. Augustine B.M. Johnson on the Liberian delegation at the just-ended climate change conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. Facebook/Augustine B.M. Johnson

By Emmanuel Sherman

WHEIN TOWN—The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has rehired a former manager who was disgraced on multiple occasions for alleged corruption and involved with companies punished for logging offenses.

The FDA hired Augustine B.M. Johnson as a consultant in June. He gets US$2,500 as a service fee, US$300 for fuel, and US$100 for communication, according to a document obtained by The Daylight. Johnson’s duties include assisting with forest management planning, supporting compliance, and advising on forest mapping. He represented Liberia at the United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.

But, Johnson’s roles starkly contradict his reputation at the FDA, where he served as the geoinformation system manager in the 2000s and 2010s. Johnson was found liable in the Carbon Harvesting Corporation (CHC) and Private Use Permit Scandals, forestry’s biggest postwar controversies. Later, he managed West African Forestry Development Inc. (WAFDI) and Mandra Forestry Liberia Limited, two of forestry’s dirtiest.

Before his rehiring, Johnson was touted as the FDA’s Deputy Managing Director for Technical Affairs but eventually lost the position to Gertrude Nyaley, a former director of the agency’s legality verification department.

Criminal carbon contract

In 2010, Johnson and other officials fraudulently attempted to award a carbon contract to the London-based CHC for 400,000 hectares in River Cess County. Had it gone through, experts said Liberia would have a US$2 billion loss.

A national inquiry found that Augustine B.M. Johnson, was a mastermind of the infamous Carbon Harvesting Corporation Scandal in 2010, in which Johnson and other officials illegally attempted to lease 400,000 hectares of forest to a British man. The DayLight/Carlucci Cooper

An official inquest found that Johnson introduced himself as a “resident expert,” allegedly receiving a bribe and computer from CHC. He then conducted a so-called biomass study on four plots of land in the southcentral county and tried to deceive the Office of the Prince of Wales about the “groundbreaking” deal.

“Johnson and colleague provided confidential information about the FDA to CHC and allowed CHC to draft the FDA document that they would have [then-Managing Director John Woods] and other FDA officials sign,” investigators said.

Investigators recommended Johnson’s dismissal and subsequent prosecution, which President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—his relative—accepted but later rescinded.

Forgery

In 2012, two years after CHC, Johnson participated in the infamous PUP Scandal in which the FDA illegally awarded about 2.5 million hectares of forests to logging companies. It remains the biggest postwar logging scandal.

An official investigation found Johnson illegally received money for boundary line demarcations and verification fieldworks. Investigators established his report for those events was falsified in “many cases” and inconsistent with a private use permit, awarded solely for private land. A Liberia Land Authority review showed 57 of 59 permits unlawfully involved community lands, supported by fraudulent documentation.

It turns out, that most of the forestlands Johnson and other FDA technical staff had issued had overlapped proposed protected and logging concession areas.

Unlike the CHC scandal, this time around, Johnson, then-FDA Managing Director Moses Wogbeh, and several officials were prosecuted. Wogbeh and others were found guilty of economic sabotage, criminal conspiracy, and other crimes but filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. The case still lingers at the high court. Criminal Court ‘C’ had granted Johnson’s petition for a separate trial, which never happened.

Johnson denied any wrongdoing regarding the CHC and PUP scandals but declined an interview with The DayLight for this story.

Illegal Logging

Illegalities followed Johnson from the FDA to WAFDI. A 2021 Ministry of Justice investigation found that West African Forest Development Incorporated (WAFDI) illegally harvested logs in Grand Bassa County’s Compound Number Two. The FDA had incorrectly awarded the company 14,460 hectares of extra woodland in the Gheegbarn #1 Community Forest. WAFDI exploited the error for three years, exporting a huge volume of logs at the hand of the process.

Following the investigation, the Ministry of Justice reprimanded the FDA and WAFDI for the irregularities. Accordingly, WAFDI’s operations were suspended for nearly a year. “WAFDI is an operator in the forestry sector, they are also obligated to know and comply with all forestry laws and procedures…,” wrote then-Minister Musa Dean.

Augustine Johnson was one of the alleged masterminds of Liberia’s largest postwar logging scandal for which he and several officials were prosecuted a decade ago. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Abandoned logs

Amid WAFDI’s rebuke, Mandra—Johnson’s other company—was being punished. The FDA suspended Mandra’s harvesting certificates and two other companies for not enrolling their logs into the FDA log-tracking system and abandoning logs in Sinoe County. A DayLight investigation found the company abandoned some 7,000 logs from the Sewacajua Community Forest, the single-most ever reported.

In a phone interview last year, Johnson appeared unfamiliar with the Regulation on Abandoned Logs…, one of the instruments he has been consulted to enforce.

He claimed that paying the fees on a log prevented its abandonment. “Before you talk about abandonment, I am expecting a ship to come to Greenville by the second week of next month to get the logs out,” Johnson said in the interview.

His comments contradicted the 2017 regulation, which defines abandonment as logs left unattended between three weeks and six months, depending on their location.

Conflict of Interest

Johnson’s well-documented activities and his current role at the FDA are a conflict of interest. Apart from WAFDI and Mandra, he has been linked to joint ventures with the Liberia Tree and Timber Company and the EJ&J Logging involving two large-scale forest concessions.

Under Augustine B.M. Johnson’s watch, the Forestry Development Authority punished Mandra Forestry Liberia Limited for abandoning thousands of logs in Sinoe County. The DayLight/Derick Snyder

In June, Johnson represented logging companies at an annual meeting on a timber trade agreement between Liberia and the European Union. He even made remarks on behalf of commercial loggers, the third week into his second spell at the FDA.

In a letter last week, the NGO Coalition of Liberia urged President Joseph Boakai to address Johnson’s conflict of interest.

“Allowing individuals with such vested interests to influence forest governance undermines the integrity of the FDA and Liberia’s commitment to transparency and good governance,” the NGOs wrote. The Executive Mansion did not immediately respond to The DayLight queries.

Similarly, the FDA’s Managing Director Rudolph Merab did not return questions for comments on Johnson and the other issues. However, Merab’s appointment to the FDA follows the same pattern as Johnson’s return to the regulator. Like Johnson, Merab is a serial illegal logger, having himself participated in the PUP Scandal and wartime logging operations.

This story was a production of the Community of Forests and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

Disappointed in Logging, Communities Look to Conservation

November 21, 2024

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A signboard at the Gheegbarn #1 Community Forest in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa County, the setting for perhaps forestry’s largest scandal in the last decade. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa County – “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 west-central 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 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.

Silas Siakor, the country manager of Dutch NGO IDH and one of the organizers, explains that the idea is to enhance communities’ sense of forest ownership and management.

“By protecting their resources, they can access funds tied to conservation ownership,” said Siakor. “For example, payments linked to forest management should be transparently managed within community bank accounts, fostering a sense of collective responsibility and preventing misuse.

The idea is to balance conservation with community needs.”

Community forest leaders at a conservation workshop in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Locals did not dwell on REDD+ or reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, which activists have warned against. They also avoided carbon credits, trading and markets for which Liberia is still developing policies and legal frameworks.

Ziadue, a landowning River Cess clan, has its own experience with carbon. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency shut a deal between the clan and a company over alleged bribery.

But that glitch is nothing compared to the logging nightmares Ziadue and its neighbors—Teekpeh, Gbarsaw and Dorbor—have experienced. Ziadue seeks termination of a logging contract for a forest it shares with Teekpeh, while loggers fled Gbarsaw and Dorbor after illegally harvesting 550 logs in 2020. These experiences have inspired locals here to look to conservation.

“We the leaders of Ziadue, Teekpeh, Gbarsaw and Dorbor, have decided to get into conservation and are united. This way, we can get benefits and develop our communities,” says Emmanuel Marcus Roberts, CLDMC Chairman of Ziadue Clan’s community land development and management committee.

Caution

The community leaders at the event, including Kennedy Kaiuway of Gheegbarn #2, are convinced that his community should run one of the three workable conservation programs.

“That will be better for us than for one man to come to our forest, ship his US$10 million [worth of] logs, and we are left destitute,” says Kaiuway. A company called L&S Resources Inc. deserted the 12,000-hectare Gheegbarn #1, leaving behind debts, abandoned logs and unfulfilled projects.

Zoegbeh shares Kaiuway’s views but urges rural people to tread with caution. “This is a new approach. For us to know it, we have to investigate and do due diligence on it,” says Zoegbeh.

Like Zoegbeh, Paul Kahn Jr., the chief officer for Gheegbarn #1 Community Forest, has doubts in conversation and believes logging can still work.

Bordering Gheegbarn #2, Gheegbarn #1 has seen perhaps the worst forestry scandal in the last decade. A Ministry of Justice Investigation found that the FDA had awarded the West African Forest Development Incorporated (WAFDI) 14,000 hectares, exporting thousands of the illegal logs.

Amid the illegal activities, WAFDI did not pay locals their fair share of logging resources. Paul Kahn Jr., Gheegbarn #1’s chief officer, puts the debt at US$193,000 in project fees, US$3,125 in land rental and, an unspecified amount in harvesting. Kahn’s predecessors are accused of mismanaging US$200,000. There has been no work there since a community protest last December.

“I think it can change [a lot] of things in the communities,” says Kahn. He had been elected to his post last month after leading the protest.

“Train officials of the community forest. Raise more awareness in communities, making them understand how to manage their funds. The responsibilities of [members of the community forest leadership]. The responsibilities of the company.”

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