Elephants Raid Farms Around Proposed Park

March 18, 2023

Top: A pair of elephants traveled from Guinea through towns and villages in Nimba County then to Grand Gedeh County, Cote d`Ivoire, and back to Guinea in 2022. The DayLight/Harry Browne

By Mark B. Newa

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series of stories on the human-elephant conflict in Liberia.

ZUIE, Gbarpolu – Villagers around the Proposed Foya Park first spotted elephants in the area around 2018. Some five years on, the elephants are destroying farms and posing a threat to the villagers’ existence.

“The elephants always come to our farm and eat the things that we are planting,” says Sam Jah, a farmer in Tardee village in the Zuie Chiefdom of Gbarpolu County. Jah had met a herd of the towering mammals while on his way to his farm on one morning last month. He fled for his life. When he returned the following day, the herds had eaten 30 of his palm trees.

“I am afraid for the remaining palm trees on the farm,” the 60-year-old father of five children tells The DayLight. Elephants eat grass, small plants, fruits, roots, bushes, branches and tree bark. The animals eat up to 169 kilograms (375 pounds) of vegetation daily. They used their tusks to carve into the trunk and tear off pieces of bark. Elephants spend nearly the entire day feeding on fruits and roots. Tree barks are their favorite food.

Jah’s neighbor Vannason Momo Vuyah lost plantain, rice, cassava and palm. “I am feeling bad, Vuyah says.

“They drink all of our water. “We are [compelled] to go far areas to draw water.”

Damaged crops and remnants of tree branches adorn Vuyah’s farm and other villagers’ farms. Plantain, rice and pineapple and shrubs lay bare, indicating the size of the herd of elephants. several palm fruits the elephants had chewed are visible. Cassava leaves and roots are scattered everywhere. From a hill overlooking one villager’s farm, a dozen elephant footprints line up the swamp around Bomagonjo Creek. Villagers say the creek never ran dry until the elephants, which drink between an estimated 26 and 55 gallons of water in less than five minutes, arrived.

Six villages have been affected in the crisis, extending beyond Yanwayeh, a neighboring clan near the Liberian-Sierra Leonean border, villagers say. The elephants are threatening this year’s farming season, which starts in December and ends in May. With the elephant situation and two months to the close of planting, farmers fear a bad harvest.

A herd of two elephants in Grand Gedeh County in 2022. The DayLight/Harry Browne

“When I pay the koo to work on my farm, the elephants will disturb the workers and all of them will run back to town,” says Varney Sheriff, a farmer with four children from Gongodee village. “No one wants to be attacked by the elephants.” A koo is a cooperative of farmers. A number of farmers can form a koo or hire one.

Hawa Jah, a mother of six children and five grandchildren from Senkpen village, is worried. “Let the government people help us with food. The elephants are not giving us chance to make our farm to support our families.”

“We are not making farms as we used to do. We can only go there to do small work and come to the village. People in this town have refused to go on my farm to work because of the elephant’s business,” said Varney Sheriff.

Sheriff and others have tried different methods to drive away the herd. They clang pots, hit hollow sticks on tree roots and blow horns. They even burn peppers to scare away the elephants. But none has worked.

Elephants’ dung in a pineapple farm in Mafala, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

A mount of elephants’ dung in a casava patch in Norman Village, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

The situation has changed the way of farming in the area, the main source of livelihood for villagers. Due to the elephants, people are not producing sufficient food, negatively impacting the villagers’ lives in many ways. It is expensive to transport foodstuff and other commodities from Monrovia to Kongbor. Twenty-five kilogram of rice sells for LS$4,000, nearly twice the price of the commodity in Monrovia.

McGill Washington, who works in the Office of the District Commissioner, says local authorities and Forestry Development Authority (FDA) are aware of the situation but they are yet to respond. “We are asking the government and other people to come and build a fence for the elephants, they know how to control them… to put them in the park,” Washington tells The DayLight.

Root causes

Zuie is close to the proposed Foya Park, which covers 164,000 hectares of forestland between Gbarpolu and Lofa. The population of elephants in the northwestern region is approximately 350 to 450, according to a German nongovernmental organization based in Liberia, Elephant Research and Conservation (ELRECO). The figure is about a quarter of the country’s elephant population. Villagers hunt, farm and mine on the fringes of the rainforest. Years of poaching for ivory, and loss of habitat, have left the African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) critically endangered.

In Kongbor, where people in Zuie conduct their businesses, a local radio announcer makes an announcement. “No one should attack the elephants,” it goes, repeated in Gola, Belleh and Mende, the languages spoken in the region. “The animals are protected by law,” it adds. It is a reference to Liberia’s wildlife law, which imposes a prison term between two and four years or a US$5,000 to US$10,000 fine.

The farmers believe that a ban on hunting elephants has swelled their population, leaving them in search of food everywhere. Experts, however, blame people for the situation, known as the human-elephant conflict.

A villager stands under an abandoned farmstead in Zuie, Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/Mark B. Newa

“When the villagers are making farms on the elephants’ tracks, we will see them appearing,” says Raymond Kpoto, a field supervisor of the Society for the Conservation of Nature Liberia (SCNL). “When the elephants passed in a place after more than 10 to 15 minutes… and their tracks are destroyed, they roam the forest to identify their tracks.”

Facts back Kpoto’s comments. Gbarpolu accounts for 111,000 hectares of tree cover loss between 2001 and 2021, according to the Global Forest Watch. It is the fifth county in Liberia with the largest tree cover loss. Tree cover loss takes place when human and natural causes, including fire, destroy the forest.

Saah David, National Coordinator, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation within the FDA, agrees with Kpoto. He says the elephants were reclaiming their territory.

“The area is their own terrain and when they move about, farms will be affected and even humans will be affected,” David adds.

David says the Liberian government will support affected villagers.

“When these animals become a risk to the survival of our people who live on the fringes of the forest, then, we must find a way to avoid animal-human conflict,” David tells The DayLight.

[This story has been corrected to credit Elephant Research and Conservation (ELRECO) for the estimated elephant population in northwestern Liberia, and not Save the Elephants]

Funding for this story was provided by Wild Philanthropy with the support of the Elephant Protection Initiative Foundation (EPI). The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over the story’s content.

Visit Gives Ambassadors Clues To Community Forestry Challenges

March 12, 2023

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Top: A signboard at a logging company’s camp in the Gheebarn #1 Community Forest in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

COMPOUND NUMBER TWO, Grand Bassa County – Five ambassadors organized an exchange among locals, a logging company and the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) to get the gist of the challenges of community forestry.

It took one and a half hours for the envoys from the European Union, Sweden, France, Germany and Ireland to get what they were looking for. Leaders of the Gheegbarn Community Forest and West Africa Development Incorporated (WAFDI)—and the FDA—presented a perfect picture of one of forestry’s most problematic contracts. Each of the three actors took open aims at one another, as they entertained questions from the ambassadors.

The ambassadors on the visit were Laurent Delahousse of the European Union, Urban Sjöström of Sweden, Jacob Haselhuber of Germany, Michael Roux of France, and Gerard Considine of Ireland. The spouses of the five men also graced the occasion.

Larry Tuning, a member of Gheegbarn’s community forest leadership, started with WAFDI’s unfulfilled required projects in their December 2018 agreement. He criticized the company for not paving farm-to-market roads, erecting schools clinics and handpumps, and underwriting the costs of quarterly meetings. He, however, praised the company for meeting scholarship, land rental and log-harvesting payments.

Asked whether he would recommend commercial logging in community forestry, Tuning’s response was obvious. “It is hard for me to tell my friends to say ‘Get into it,’ because I [am] facing too many problems,” Tuning added as staff of WAFDI, sitting opposite looked on. “Instead of going into logging if had the support I would go into conservation.” Community forestry is a crucial part of Liberian forestry, giving rural communities the right to comanage their forests.

‘Let them go’

Tuning continued for several minutes, tearing into WAFDI on labor issues. He said the company had contravened a clause in their agreement, which mandates it to employ 60 percent of its workforce from the community. Dugbormar Kwekeh, another member of the community leadership buttressed his comments—and in a dramatic fashion, too.

(R-L) Urban Sjöström, Ambassador of Sweden; Jacob Haselhuber, Ambassador of Germany; Laurent Delahousse, Head of the European Union Delegation; Michael Roux, Ambassador of France; and Gerard Considine, Ambassador of Ireland. The five envoys listen to leaders of the Gheebarn #1 Community Forest in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa at an information and fact-finding tour of the west-central county on March 9, 2023. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

“They are just extracting our logs and there is nothing we are benefiting from,” Kwekeh said in Bassa through an interpreter. Gesturing as she went along, with an audible voice, she expressed frustration and fury. “The company came to subject us to poverty. “Let them go from here. Another company can take us from poverty.”

Gualberto Ojo, a Filipino who represented WAFDI in the meeting, denied preventing locals from farming. In fact, he accused them of farming on a portion of the 26,363 hectares of forestland they contracted to the company in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa County.

“The company cannot stop the community people from farming; is not for us to say that it is the source of living,” said Ojo. “Most part of the forest is all farming activities, so because of this and other reasons the forest is not really productive.

Dugbormar Kwekeh, a member of Gheegbarn #1 Community Forest tells European envoys about challenges with commercial logging in that part of Liberia. On the far left is Larry Tuning, the secretary of the community forest. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Pit-sawing

Before responding to Kwekeh’s comments, Ojo took a well-timed swipe at Tuning, who is a chainsaw miller. Tuning’s mention of pit-sawing had led to indistinct muttering among FDA representatives at the meeting. Also called pit-sawing, chainsaw milling began after the Second Liberian Civil War (1999-2003), and efforts to regulate the sub-sector have failed so far. It has wreaked havoc in forests across the country. Ojo, said, that included Gheegbarn #1.

“Pit-sawing is one major challenge; it has taken over the forest,” Ojo said, who said he first spotted the illegal activities in 2020. He said WAFDI had told the FDA about it. “People are doing pit-sawing all in the forest now.”

Human settlements and factors affecting the global logging industry were other issues, according to Ojo. A company representative said there were people from the neighboring Bong County living in the forest, and that the coronavirus and the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.

“During that four years the market on round logs collapsed totally,” Ojo told the diplomats.

Workers of the West African Forest Development Investment (WAFDI) an information and fact-finding event organized by European ambassadors. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

‘We were like turtles’

Then entered the FDA, represented by Deputy Managing Director for Operations Joseph Tally and a host of top-level managers. There was an announcement from Weedor Gray, the technical manager of the community forestry department for periodic reports from communities. And more questions came.

“Have you ever come to the FDA to request for harvesting or export data?” Gertrude Nyaley, the technical manager for the legality verification department, asked Tuning. Nyaley’s rhetorical question was a response to Tuning’s earlier reply to an envoy about WAFDI’s production and export records. Tuning had said the community did not get the documents, and only accepted fees the company paid. Production records, in particular, are crucial in calculating harvesting payments, known in the industry as cubic meter fees.

Nyaley further pressed Tuning whether he and Gheegbarn’s leadership had informed the townspeople of a US$18,000 WAFDI paid. That question caused a stir among villagers at the event. Tuning encountered a rebuke from a local named Sylvester Williams, who had suggested community benefits were being misused. William disagreed with Tuning that the leadership supported villagers’ farming activities, bursting into a peal of frenzied laughter. Tuning said Williams was busy with his motorcycle taxi and was unaware of community matters. That pushed the community forestry drama to its highest peak. In a phone interview with The DayLight on Sunday, Tuning denied misapplying the fund, saying the leadership had already informed the community about the payment.

Tally, dressed in khaki uniform like all the managers of the FDA, thanked the European ambassadors for the event. “We were like turtles, and you put fire on our backs,” he said.

Joseph Tally, the deputy managing director of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) speaks at the event. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Tally’s comments were a reference to criticisms of the rise in forestry violations and the trade of illegal timber. Both the national and international media have published reports of logging wrongdoings, involving the FDA. It was a major issue at last month’s forest and climate forum, where Liberia reassured its commitment to combat illegal logging and climate change in its pursuit of climate financing.

But talking about the correction of past wrongdoings, Gheegbarn #1 was the right place for Tally and his team. Last year, a Ministry of Justice investigation found the FDA awarded WAFDI excess forest blocks. The report, seen by The DayLight, cut the deal between the company and the community from 15 to seven years. Several senior managers were replaced in the fallout of the scandal. The parties have signed a new agreement.

Conservation

Delahousse said the delegation had not come to condemn any of the actors. “This was not a trial of the company. This is a fact-finding information mission, and for us, it was very important to be here and to hear all the various stakeholders,” said Delahousse.

Delahousse said he learned that community forestry was “complicated,” a “bit of a bobble,” and lacked transparency. He urged communities to consider conservation programs instead. Of the dozens of community forests, only a few have a conservation management program. Others have scrapped it to accommodate mining.

“We need to work also on seeing how conservation can be an alternative for some communities,” Delahousse said. “Maybe they can make more money from conservation.”

After the meeting, the ambassadors and their entourage toured a portion of Gheegbarn Community Forest with the FDA. The visit ended with a trip to the log yard of Kisvan in Buchanan, which operates in the Central Morweh Community Forest in River Cess.

Workers of WAFDI load logs into a container at the company’s log yard in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa County in September 2022. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

FDA Bans ‘Kpokolo’ Timbers

February 15, 2023

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Top: A kpokolo operation site in Gbaryama, Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

MONROVIA – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has banned the transport of squared timbers, commonly called “kpokolo,” to curtail illegal exports.

In Kpokolo logging operations, individuals sign agreements with villagers to harvest logs, and mill them into thick, heavy timber blocks. The woods are then packed into containers and smuggled out of the country.

The illegal activities —alongside other illegalities—have rocked the forestry sector, bringing Liberian timber once more to international disrepute.

“We have ordered all our checkpoint staff members to stop the issuance of waybills for all sawn timbers with a thickness above two inches because this is the dimensional range of thickness that is prone to illegal exportation,” said Edward Kamara, FDA’s manager for forest marketing and revenue forecast. He was responding to an email inquiry by The DayLight after reports of a likely ban on the activities began to emerge.

Kamara said the ban does not cover similar timbers produced by licensed sawmills, which resize timbers to meet local customers’ demand. He said the FDA had allowed chainsaw millers to also trade the woods locally but they went beyond their limits.

“It had been observed that most of the timber arrested for attempting to illegally export consisted of these dimensions,” Kamara told The DayLight. “Therefore, it is the chainsaw milling block wood… that is banned to be brought to the market, especially in Monrovia.”

Kamara did not say when was the ban imposed but rangers and kpokolo producers had put it to as early as September last year.

The announcement of the ban comes barely five months after the first report on kpokolo emerged in the press.

Illegal Loggers Harvest ‘2,300’ Timbers in Gbarpolu Town

February 6, 2023

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Top: A collage of pictures showing piles of squared timbers Sam Tomosiayah, an illegal logger, harvested in Darmo’s Town in Gbarpolu’s Bopolu District. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

Editor’s Note: This story is a part of a series on an illegal logging activity commonly called “Kpokolo.”

DARMO’S TOWN, Gbarpolu County – Nearly a dozen huge piles of heavy, squared timbers are covered with palm thatches on the side of a road that branches from the Suehn Mecca-Bopolu highway. More, smaller piles are scattered in the forest here.

The woods are actually the products of a logging agreement between a Liberian-Indian company named Raytech International and the people of Darmo’s Town in Gbarpolu’s Bopolu District.

But unlike in a legal logging deal, the company and community did not obtain any rights to sign the deal. The Forestry Development Authority (FDA)—at least—did not officially authorize it. It is part of an illicit logging operation called “kpokolo” that involves shaping the woods like boxes to fit neatly in containers and smuggled out of the country.

Called block wood by the FDA, kpokolo operation thrived in plain sight for years until an apparent ban on the illicit activity in the third quarter of last year. It had become one of the most common forestry violations, particularly in the last three or four years. It harnessed the tide of political neglect in rural communities, the legacies of failed logging contracts, and the ineffectiveness and involvement of the FDA.

In Darmo’s Town, it all started during the rainy season in 2021 when a man on a motorcycle visited the area. Sam Tumosiayah, an agent of Raytech, asked chiefs and elders to grant him access to the forest there. Tumosiayah had established the company in January of that year, according to its article of incorporation.

A pile of squared timbers Sam Tomosiayah, an illegal logger, harvested in Darmo’s Town in Gbarpolu’s Bopolu District. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

In exchange, Tumosiayah, a resident of Somalia Drive in Monrovia, promised the townspeople to repair a major bridge leading in the area among other things.

“Then they agreed to give the landowner their tolls directly. Even our town has received tolls,” said Mamadee Harris, a resident of Darmo’s Town, in an interview with The DayLight.

Peter Vah, the local manager of who Raytech, said the company paid villagers L$100 for each piece of kpokolo measuring six inches in height, 12 inches in width and seven feet in length (6X12X7). He said the company had not discussed with locals about the 12X12X7 timbers it cut.

Vah said Raytech produced a total of 2,300 pieces of kpokolo in the one year and three months it has worked in Darmo’s Town. “The first batch of kpokolo we produced was 500 pieces and the next one 1,800,” said Vah, who said his duties included finding trees and supervising the harvesting. “Nothing has been sold. Some are in the bush, and others in Monrovia.” The DayLight could not independently verify Vah’s figures.

In a mobile interview with The DayLight, Tumosiayah lied that the company had only cut 150 kpokolo in Darmo’s Town. He then diverted from the issue after this reporter presented proof the newspaper had gathered on Raytech’s operation.

Sam Tumosiayah is a representative of Raytech, an illegal logging company that operates in Gbarpolu County. Facebook/Sam Tumosiayah

Legal Documents

The FDA may have banned kpokolo operations in the third quarter of last year as pressure mounted on the agency to stamp out illegal logging, according to some of the illegal loggers and rangers at a number of FDA checkpoints. Kpokolo first appeared in the news in September last year.

Tumosiayah said he and other kpokolo loggers were appealing to the FDA to lift the ban to allow them to sell thousands of kpokolo left in various forests across the country. “Our business on the market is not going like before. We are catching some difficulties,” he said.

Tumosiayah thinks his kpokolo operation is legal because his business is registered and pays taxes. “Some people are cheating and defrauding the Liberian government,” he said. “But if you have legal documents to do X,Y,Z, the government will say, ‘Yes, this is a Liberian person.’”

Tumosiayah’s thoughts are not backed by law, as a company needs more than an article of incorporation and a business registration certificate to do logging. It must show the capacity to do logging, sign a contract, conduct an environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA), produce forest management plans, and obtain a harvesting certificate. There are also standards for harvest, export and communities’ benefits.

Kpokolo operators such as Raytech International, have harnessed the tide of neglect by successive Liberian governments of rural communities and the failed logging contracts across the country, coupled with the complicity of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) amid enormous forestry violations. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

That aside, there are other issues with Raytech’s papers that further expose its forestry violations. Its article of incorporation only lists Savid Muhammed Kutty (40 percent) and Jilt Joseph (10 percent) as two of its three shareholders. The third shareholder, however, is omitted. Based on its tax-payment history, both men are foreign nationals but the company’s business registration certificate identifies it only as Liberian-owned. And Raytech amended its article of incorporation in Oct last year, according to the tax-payment record. Its new legal documents are not registered at the Liberia Business Registry as of last month and do not reflect the amendment. That is a violation of the Business Association Act, which requires firms to register changes to their legal papers.

Between June 2, 2021 and January 25 this year, Raytech brought in nine foreign nationals into the country, three of them twice, according to the company’s tax payment records. It made no payments for work permits, despite showing Kutty, Joseph and three of their colleagues obtained non-ECOWAS resident permits at least once. The other three men are Sijomon Verghese, Manilal Sasi and Sinojin Augustine.

In Liberia, shareholding or beneficial ownership, work permit and resident status are crucial to things such as taxes, business rights and logging eligibility. Kutty did not return queries via WhatsApp for comments. Joseph said he was no longer a shareholder in the company, without providing any proof.

Piles of kpokolo Raytech harvested, like this one, are scattered in the forest in Darmo’s Town, Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

In our phone interview, Tumusiayah claimed that he was Raytech’s majority shareholder and did not know of the omission. He further claimed that he had gone to the business registry to check the documents and would call The DayLight. However, efforts to conduct an in-person interview with him did not succeed, and he did not return further calls.

The Managing Director of the FDA Mike Doryen did not reply to an emailed inquiry on the status of kpokolo operations countrywide. However, addressing delegates at a recent forest and climate change forum in Monrovia, Doryen blamed communities for widespread illegal activities.

“These communities are undermining our efforts to deal with violations,” he said. “People go in the communities and take money from other people to harvest and transport timber to town, harvesting double-board foot outside what is required by law, it is illegal logging,” Doryen added.

While there is plenty of evidence that backs Doryen’s comments, the FDA itself has benefited from the unlawful activities. It collected fees from kpokolo operators for years but there are no records that they remitted them into the government’s coffers. An investigation by The DayLight last month revealed a number of receipts the FDA issued an illegal logger in Ganta, Nimba County. They matched other kpokolo receipts obtained so far. Doryen did not respond to a list of questions at the time.

Violations, Community Benefits Dominate Forest Forum

February 5, 2023

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Top: A drone shot of a log yard in Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Derick Snyder

By Mark B. Newa

MONROVIA – Forestry violations and delayed payments of benefits to logging-affected communities were the major issues at the just-ended forest conference hosted by the Liberian government.

The “Forest and Climate Resilience Forum” was expected to reassess the commitment of the Liberian government and the international community to the protection of the country’s rainforest, the largest in the west African region.

The event came on the backdrop of reports of widespread irregularities and impunity in Liberia’s forestry sector. Associated Press recently reported that President George Weah ignored calls from foreign partners to tackle illegalities in the forestry sector.

“Current situation in Liberia`s forest sector is worrying,” said Laurent Delahousse, the head of the European Union (EU) Delegation, at the close of the event over the weekend. “It is characterized by [……] too short rotations, by the lack of proper forest management plans, and by illegal logging, which are real threats to forest regeneration and which affect the commercial and the global value of the forest,” Delahousse added.

On Thursday, the first day of the conference, more than 20 international nongovernmental organizations said the Liberian government was failing to control the illegal logging and undermining the systems in place to control it. They come from China, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland.

“We call on the government of Liberia to ensure all timber exports go through the LiberTrace, the traceability system, and to close down all existing routes for laundering illegally sourced timber,” the group said in a joint statement.

The Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) Mike Doryen brushed off criticisms, promising to grant access to public information. He blamed communities for the situation.

“Illegal logging activities usually begin with forest communities. These communities are undermining our efforts to deal with violations,” Doryen said.

“People go in the communities and take money from other people to harvest and transport timber to town… outside what is required law, it is illegal logging,” Doryen added. He, however, promised to set up a task force to monitor and regulate unlawful activities in the forestry sector.

Communities’ Benefits

There were a lot of concerns about communities’ benefits during the two days of the event.

European Union Head of Delegation Laurent Delahousse flags illegalities in Liberia’s forest sector during the Forest and Climate Resilience Conference. Photo credit: Mark B. Newa/The DayLight

By law, communities hosting large-scale logging concessions and former small-scale ones set aside exclusively for Liberians, are entitled to 30 percent of the land rental fees companies pay. But this is not the case. The government, which receives the payments, owes communities US$6.6 million.

Outside the hall at the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Ministerial Complex, where the event took place, people from those affected communities protested. The protesters carried placards with inscriptions: “Pro-poor for the poor but not against the poor,” “Government of Liberia pays our land rental fees and the forestry law is clear on community benefits, among others.”

“This money is not forthcoming, with at least over US$6 million still outstanding. The little money that has come through was [either] late or meddled in corruption,” said Loretha Pope-Kai the chairperson of the National Civil Society Council of Liberia, the largest conglomerate of pressure groups in the country.

“Our forest communities live on the forest for their cultural, social, economic, and all other needs. Forests are therefore key to all considerations of Liberia’s… future,” Pope-Kai added, receiving huge applause.

National Benefit Sharing Trust (NBST), a watchdog that oversees communities benefits, said the delayed payment made it difficult for the group to function. It is largely funded by payments communities get. It has spent US$1.8 million on 53 projects nationwide, it reported last year.

“Funding gap is undermining the long-term sustainability of the NBST,” Kollie said.

The theme of the two-day forum was “Catalyze renewed commitments and strengthen partnerships in sustainable forest management as key strategies supporting the Government of Liberia’s Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD).”

Liberia To Host Forest and Climate Event

February 1, 2023

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Top: A drone photograph of a log yard in Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Derick Snyder

By Mark B. Newa

MONROVIA – Liberia is hosting an international forest and climate conference, expected to reassess the commitment of the Liberian government and the international community to the protection of the country’s rainforest, the largest in the west African region. The event comes amid widespread irregularities and impunity in Liberia’s forestry sector.

“Liberia remains committed to the global climate change agenda,” President George Weah said in the State of the Nation Address on Monday, announcing the event, which will take place on Wednesday at the Ministerial Complex in Congo Town.

“We are looking to improve governance of the forest sector and move toward a more effective management of our forest reserves, to help us transition to a better model of climate finance,” Weah said. He added Liberia is working to enlarge its protected areas and was committed to reducing reliance on commercial logging.

Delegates expected to attend the conference include envoys from the World Bank, and the ministers of environment and forests from Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Cote d`Ivoire are also expected to attend. The climate change special envoy of Norway—the country that provided Liberia with US$150 million to combat deforestation—and the Norwegian ambassador to Liberia are also expected to attend, organizers of the event say. The same goes for the European Union, which has had a logging trade agreement with Liberia since 2011, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom.

Liberia hosts 43 percent of the last two significant blocks of the remaining closed canopy tropical rainforest within the Upper Guinea Forest, West Africa’ spanning from Ghana, Cote d`Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo. Liberia has committed to conserving 30 percent of the existing forested areas of the country.

“There are doubts from some partners that Liberia is not moving in this direction, but the forest law says we should put under conservation at least 30 percent of all our remaining forest estates to conservation,” Saah David, Jr., the national coordinator of REDD+, one of the organizers of the event. REDD+ means reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.

“The forum will be used as means to now push partners to also recommit to helping Liberia helps itself,” David added.

The conference, which was rescheduled from October last year, will feature experiences from Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Ghana, a country that has just been enrolled into the global carbon financing program. Ghana is now the second country in Africa after Mozambique to receive payments from the World Bank for reducing its carbon emission.

The conference comes at a time the Liberian forestry sector is marred by illegalities. Associated Press recently reported that President George Weah ignored calls from foreign partners to tackle the illegalities in the forestry sector. The investigation report highlighted illegalities in the forestry sector. Liberia failed the natural resource management component of the Millennium Challenge Compact (MCC), an American agency that measures countries’ economic policies and potential for growth.

The report said Weah had ignored calls from the international community to address forestry non-compliance, saying they were “nonsense.”

The low budgetary allotment has been another issue. In the 2021/2022 fiscal year, the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) received just below US$2.9 million, more than 90 percent of which is employees’ salaries.

But there has been some progress made in the sector. Liberia has created the Sapo National Park, the East Nimba Nature Reserve, Lake Piso Multiple Use Reserve, and the Gola National Forest. It has begun the establishment of proposed protected areas: Kpo, Krahn-Bassa Foya and others.

CEO Emails FDA Lawyer Boasting of Impunity over Illegal Logging

January 20, 2023

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Top: One of the logs Masayaha, Magna’s partner, illegally harvested in a forest in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County, is seen next to its stump. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

James Harding Giahyue

Morley Kamara, the CEO and owner of Magna Logging Incorporated emailed The DayLight, bragging not to be bothered by stories the newspaper publishes about his company’s violations

Kamara copies Cllr. Yanquoi Dolo, FDA’s lawyer, responsible to help prosecute forestry violators

Kamara’s Magna and Masayaha, its Lebanese-owned partner, have committed several offenses over the last three years—from an illegal subcontract to cutting trees outside their contract area

MONROVIA – The CEO and owner of a company has emailed The DayLight to boast that he was not bothered by revelations of the firm’s wrongdoings, copying the in-house lawyer of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA).

“These stories do not move me one bit,” said Morley Kamara of Magna Logging Corporation, sharing the communication with Cllr. Yanquoi Dolo, who helps the FDA prosecute forestry violators.

“You’re missing your mark,” Kamara added, the email in which he also copied Ali Harkous, Masayaha’s CEO and owner.

Kamara was referring to a series of investigation reports The DayLight published last year that revealed a number of logging offenses the Liberian-owned firm and Masayaha Logging Company, its Lebanese partner, committed.

The FDA failed to take any actions against the companies despite overwhelming evidence of violations revealed in the four-part series, appearing between September and October last year.

The first story exposed a string of illegal logging operations outside the Worr Community Forest in Grand Bassa County, its contract area between 2020 and 2021. It featured interviews from chiefs and elders who participated in the activities, voice WhatsApp conversations with an FDA executive and a resident, and a report from SGS on the same offenses. SGS is a Swiss firm globally acclaimed in the verification industry. It created Liberia’s log-tracking system known as the LiberTrace.

Two illegally harvested logs Masayaha Logging Company left behind in the Garkpa Charlie Town in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

The second story showed that Masayaha abandoned some 600 logs it had harvested during the same period of its illegal harvesting spree.

The third story covered villagers’ protest against Masayaha for their forest benefits, stopping the company from operating. The company has now paved a new road and repaired a clinic building in the community in response to the villagers’ demands.

The last part of the series uncovered the illegality of a subcontract between Magna and Masayaha. The two had signed their deal unknown to the leadership of the community, a breach of the Community Rights Law of 2009 with Respect to Forest Lands. Villagers must participate in such deals, according to one of the law’s guiding principles.

That story also shed light on Magna’s capacity to conduct logging activities, having transferred its full logging right to Masayaha, less than a year after signing its agreement with the leadership of Worr Community Forest.

By law, Magna and Masayaha should have paid different fines for stealing logs and abandoning others.

The ‘Kpokolo’ Kingpin: How FDA Created A Serial Illegal Logger

January 19, 2023

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Top: Emmanuel Gongor poses before a stockpile of illegal block wood, commonly called “kpokolo.” Photo credit: Facebook/ Emmanuel Gongor

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part report on the operations of an infamous illegal logger, based in Nimba County. It is also a part of a broader series on a criminal logging activity commonly called “Kpokolo.”

By Mark B. Newa

GANTA, Nimba County – On one sunny day in Karnwee late last year, forest rangers and police officers seized a truck with 80 pieces of boxlike timber, ending an hourlong chase all the way from Bahn, where the woods had been harvested.

Emmanuel Gongor, a middle-height man, arrived on the scene shortly on a motorcycle taxi, appearing shocked. This was not the first time Gongor had transported block wood, commonly called “Kpokolo” in the logging industry. For years he passed checkpoints without any problems. Sometimes he sold the wood to other companies or individuals in Liberia. Other times, he exported them.

Things had suddenly changed. Gongor learned that the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) had banned Kpokolo, derived from the sound the wood makes when it falls or “thick and heavy” in the Kpelle language. His woods were dumped by a roadside.

“We have been so committed, but if we cannot understand, we will seek the legal process by taking the FDA to the circuit court,” a furious Gongor told The DayLight in a phone interview days after the incident. He expected to get US$7,000 from the consignment and settle all of his holiday expenses.

Gongor does not have a logging contract and his timber surpass the dimension defined in the Chainsaw Milling Regulation. His woods are between five and 10 inches thick, up to five times the required measurement of two inches. In photos posted to Gongor’s Facebook page, several men can be seen trying to lift the timber.

But interviews and documents show that the FDA has been aware of Gongor’s illegal logging activities for half of a decade. In fact, the agency has unlawfully received fees from him. Some of his waybills seen by The DayLight amounted to over US$1,500.

Those payments sanctioned the 48-year-old to rip off forests from central Nimba to the Cote d’Ivoire border. Nimba lost 315,000 hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2021. That makes it second only to Bong County (363,000 hectares), according to Global Forest Watch, a tool that monitors the state of forests across the world.

‘Emmanuel, The Investor’

Gongor was an accomplished miner. He panned and sieved for gold on a number of goldfields in Gbarpolu, Grand Kru and Grand Gedeh.

He started up in the logging industry in 2017 as a chainsaw miller, pit-sawyers or plank producer. Soon he saw that he could make more money from harvesting kpokolo.

“Block wood is preferable because for normal sawing at times, we take 500 pieces of timber to be a truckload, but for block wood, some are just 150-200 pieces,” Gongor explained. “For the past six years now, I have been on that operation.”

Gongor was hired by a Turkish-owned firm called Tropical Wood Group of Companies, which obtained a one-year permit from the FDA to buy and sell. The permit was issued by Darlington Tuargben, the FDA Managing Director at the time. The legality verification department (LVD), a unit of the FDA that manages its log-tracking system called the chain of custody, said it has no record of the company. Efforts to contact Abdulla Aklan, the company’s owner, were not successful. Tuargben did not respond to queries.

Emmanuel Gongor’s 80 illegal block woods, commonly called “Kpokolo” were arrested in Karnwee, near Saclepea. Picture credit: Emmanuel Gongor

Gongor conquered the kpokolo black market. He broke out with his employer and established Tropical Wood Group of Investment. Though he is yet to register it as a legal entity, he continues his criminal deals with the new firm.

His network spans four of the nine districts in Nimba: Zoe-Gbao, Zoe-Geh, Bu-Yao and Gbelay-Geh in the central and eastern regions of the county. He boasts of a workforce of 25 people and a host of villagers and disadvantaged youth or “zogoes.” They do everything from locating forested communities to finding trees and from negotiating with local landowners, to harvesting, hauling and transporting. With 30 chainsaws, they have built wooden bridges, and town halls and have repaired schools and clinics in forested towns and villages.

Videos recorded by Gongor show him taking stock of trees he had negotiated with villagers to harvest in Tahnplay, and celebrating the completion of projects. “We finally completed the bridge connecting Kanhplay to Sehyi Town in Gbelay-Geh Statutory District,” Gongor can be heard saying in one video. “Together with the youth, elders, and chiefs, we were able to complete the first phase of operation.”

Townspeople in the areas Gongor works revere him. His name goes beyond the reach of logging companies in that region, many of whom have failed to fulfill their social agreements with communities.

“We call him Emmanuel The Investor,”Arkey Vasiee, town chief of Zortapa.

In March last year, James Zuorpeawon, Gbehlay-Geh’s development superintendent, issued him a permit to operate in the area. It authorizes Gongor to present the document “for awareness and protection during his operation within the district.”

Gongar and villagers pose for a picture following the construction of a bridge in Karnplay, Nimba.

Other kpokolo loggers across the country also respect Gongor.

“This place is small for him, he can’t even come here again,” said a plank producer from Gompa Wood Field in Ganta, who preferred not to be named. Gongor had milled planks there prior to venturing into kpokolo.

“Gongor is one of the most skillful kpokolo operators,” said James Kelley, a kpokolo logger in Gbaryama in Gbarpolu’s Bopolu District. Kelley said he had worked with him in Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County.

Gongor does not depend on his fame—or notoriety—to run his business. He advertises on Facebook. “[If you are] interested in this Iroko table, you can WhatsApp me on this number,” a November 27, 2020 post reads, featuring a flat piece of log on a stick like a table. “If anyone is interested in buying teak wood, just contact me on my contact number,” reads a March 10, 2021 post. Both Iroko and teak logs are durable woods used for outdoor purposes. His accounts also showcase selfie pictures of him with men loading giant-sized block wood onto trucks.

But Gongor would not have been this successful without the FDA. Receipts of their transactions show he has paid the FDA tens of thousands of United States Dollars in waybill, fees imposed on transported timber. One September 2017 receipt shows that he paid the FDA L$18,000 for 300 pieces of kpokolo. Another in May last year reveals he paid US$424 for 121 pieces.

One document shows Gongor’s invoice to a firm in Hong Kong to export 125 cubic meters of sawn timber with a height and width of 50 centimeters (approximately 20 inches) and length of seven feet. He had a deal to export timber from the Freeport of Monrovia to the Port of Chittagong in Bangladesh, according to one invoice.

“The FDA agents are always informed when we are going to bring wood from the bush,” Gongor told The DayLight.

“We make more money for forestry. Our own percentage to the FDA is different from the normal [pit-sawing].” He was speaking in reference to the US$0.60 toll on a plank compared to US$2 on kpokolo, according to waybills FDA issued him, seen by The DayLight.

Emmanuel Gongor takes a selfie with men loading block wood in a truck. Facebook/Emmanuel Gongor

The fees the FDA received from Gongor are illegal in a number of ways. First, the payments he has made to the FDA do not go to the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), the company’s tax-payments record shows. In addition to possessing no contract, the villages where he operates do not have any legal rights to engage in logging deals. And the timber he harvests or exports does not pass through the legal channel, as mandated in the National Forestry Reform Law and the Regulation on Establishing a Chain of Custody System.

Gongor’s kpokolo waybills have also shined a light on FDA’s shady plank tolls system. Fees the agency collects from planks dealers are not made public as required by forestry’s legal frameworks, including Liberia’s Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union. They are neither paid to the LRA nor captured in the reports of the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). The FDA has retained these fees for years, a breach of the financial provision of the reform law.

FrontPage Africa reported in 2020 that the Klay checkpoint in Bomi collected over L$500,000 in just one month. It said that there was a wrangle within the FDA over the management of the funds, adding that the fees went into a mobile money account belonging to Edward Kamara, FDA’s forest product marketing manager. Kamara coordinates fees collected at checkpoints countrywide.

Nimba, Region III FDA agent in Ganta issued a waybill for 212 pieces of Kpokolo on July 5, 2022

Emmanuel Gongor of Tropical Wood Group of Investment paid the FDA US$226 to transport 113 block wood on May 11, 2022

One of Emmanuel Gongor’s earliest receipts from the FDA for block wood, shows he paid L$9,485 to transport 55 pieces of the illegal timber on October 28, 2017.

This latest FDA receipt shows Gongor paid the agency US$80 for 40 pieces of kpokolo on May 11, 2022.

One of Tropical Wood Group of Companies’ illegal export documents obtained by The DayLight

Ironically, while the FDA secretly collects fees from Gongor, it has asked the public to assist it to combat illegal logging activities. The FDA said in a release last November that it had intercepted four container trucks trafficking timber from western Liberia. That statement followed a similar one three months earlier after rangers in Bomi and Gbarpolu arrested three trucks with logs illegally harvested.

Earlier this month, the Monrovia City Court issued an arrest warrant for a former police commander, an ex-envoy and eight people in the Bomi-Gbarpolu incident. The FDA is seeking court orders in the counties to auction the logs, the first such step since the formulation of Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timber and Timber Products.

‘I am over hurt’

Gongor feels betrayed in all of this, believing he is a victim rather than the villain he actually is. For the last six years, the FDA has sanctioned his operations and accepted his payments like a typical chainsaw miller. He finds nothing wrong with producing Kpokolo.

“It would have been good for the FDA to formally inform those involved in the business before ordering us to stop the harvest and sale of block wood in the country,” Gongor said.

“I am over hurt. We have been issued hundreds of waybills. We always pay a huge sum of money to these guys,” he added.

In December, nearly a month after his consignment of timber was seized, Gongor transported them to Ganta. They were again seized and are being kept at the Gompa Wood Field.

The FDA is yet to take the required legal actions to confiscate Gongor’s timber. Under the confiscated timber regulation, The FDA should petition the circuit court in Sanniquellie to auction the wood. Both Arthur Gweh, the commander of Nimba County police detachment in Bahn, and Emmanuel Gbeh, the FDA ranger who arrested the wood, declined to comment.

By law, Gongor should face a lawsuit for his illicit activities, and if convicted he could pay a fine, serve a prison term, or both. It is a crime for a non-contract holder to harvest timber, punishable under the Penal Code as economic sabotage.

The FDA’s Managing Director Mike Doryen did not respond to emailed queries.

FDA Submits to Court’s Order to Allow Export of US$4M Illegal Logs

January 17, 2023

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Top: Some of the illegally harvested logs. Picture credit: Independent Forest Monitoring Coordination Mechanism

By James Harding Giahyue

BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa County – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has accepted a Supreme Court mandate to allow a company to export a huge consignment of logs it had illegally harvested. It brings to a close more than one year of a legal battle that has shed light on widespread irregularities in Liberia’s forestry sector.

The Second Judicial Circuit Court in Upper Buchanan had issued an arrest warrant for officials of the FDA after it failed to adhere to the high court’s decision to uphold the lower court’s ruling in favor of Renaissance Inc. The firm had sued the FDA after the agency seized some 14,000 cubic meters of logs valued at an estimated US$4.17 million.

Sheriffs last week arrested Atty. Gertrude Nyaley, the technical manager of FDA’s legality verification department (LVD), which manages the system that tracks logs harvested and exported out of Liberia. Nyaley was later released on bail by her lawyers, with the agency scheduled to appear before the lower court on Monday, according to court filings.

At the proceedings on Monday, Cllr. Abraham Sillah, the head of the FDA legal team, asked the court for 10 days for the export to happen. The court granted that petition, fining Nyaley, Harrison Karnwea, the chairman of its board of directors, Managing Director Mike Doryen and his two deputies, US$300 each. It also fined Cllr. Yanquoi Dolo, FDA in-house lawyer, US$100. It said it would jail officials of the agency if the logs were not shipped by that time.

“No department of the government other than the Judiciary shall exercise judicial function,” Judge Peabody said, according to court documents. “The [actions] of the Forestry Development Authority and its managers are usurping the functions and have interfered with and is an act of reviewing the judgment of the Supreme Court and this court.”

The court also accepted the FDA’s request not to export the controversial logs through the tracking system called LiberTrace. The computerized system uses barcodes to trace timber from its sources to its final destinations. It is an integral part of Liberia’s forestry reform agenda, a foothold of the country’s trade agreement with the European Union, called the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA).

“I am happy that the law is about to take its course,” said Aaron George, Renaissance’s CEO in a mobile phone interview.

Renaissance won the case after the court upheld a six-man jury unanimous verdict to allow Renaissance to export the logs. The court agreed with the company that disallowing its logs from being shipped having already paid a US$105,000 fine would have amounted to a double punishment or double jeopardy. It is a defense in Liberian law that prevents a person from being tried again for the same offense.

After that verdict, the FDA filed an appeal at the Supreme Court, which was followed by a Renaissance motion for dismissal. The FDA did not respond to that petition, leaving the high court to dismiss the appeal.

“The agencies of the government of Liberia, though exempted from filling an appeal bond, they are required to strictly abide by the other mandatory steps enumerated in the appeal statute for the completion of an appeal,” the Supreme Court said in the ruling on November 4 last year.

Renaissance Inc. harvested the logs outside its concession area known in the logging industry as timber scale contract area two or TSC A2, located in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa County. Lacking a trace, FDA technicians found it impossible to register the wood into LiberTrace. Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), a Swiss firm that co-manages the system, declined to enroll the timber, drawing the Supreme Court’s ire.

Monday’s decision is expected to anger more than a dozen international NGOs who called on the FDA to remain firm in its decision not to allow the logs to be exported. They come from the United States, European Union countries, the United Kingdom, and China three regions with a vested interest in Liberia’s forestry sector, investing millions.

“We are encouraged by the FDA taking action to stop illegally sourced timber being exported, and strongly support its staffs’ actions,” the organizations said in a joint statement on Sunday.

“We are extremely disturbed that the Liberian courts, instigated by logging company Renaissance, seem intent to punish FDA staff for doing their duty,” the statement added.

In 2021, an investigation by a group of civil society organizations found that Renaissance Inc. had harvested the logs under the pretext that it was paving a road in that area. It said all the logs were ekki wood (Lophira alata), first-class redwood currently selling for US$298 on the international market.

Two years before that, Société Française de Réalisation, d’Etudes et de Conseil (SOFRECO), a European Union-commissioned auditor based in Paris, urged the Ministry to investigate TSC A2.

This map shows the boundary of TSC-A2 and where Renaissance cut down the trees. Picture credit: Independent Forest Monitoring Coordination Mechanism

“The mere fact that an operator took the risks of felling such an important volume of logs illegally provides a high probability that the operator was confident in the possibility to export the illegal logs, which raises questions for further consideration,” SOFRECO said in a November 2019 letter to major players in the forestry sector.

The ministry investigated the illegal harvesting but has not published its report for over three years on. The international NGOs called on the ministry to release the document.

“We call upon the Government of Liberia to follow the law, publish the official investigation report by the Ministry of Justice into the Renaissance case, and use the evidence provided in this report, to guide their decisions,” the group said.

Minister of Justice Cllr. Musa Dean told The DayLight “Findings [of the report] were released to the appropriate agency and all concerned.”

In March last year, the FDA canceled TSC A2 and six others in Bassa, Grand Cape Mount, Gbarpolu and Bong after they outstayed their legal lifespan. Communities affected by TSC A2 and the other concessions have not received their benefits.

Impact: Arrest Warrant for Members of Illegal Logging Network Exposed by The DayLight

January 12, 2023

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The Supreme Court of Liberia — Police officers at the Supreme Court of Liberia

Top: The Temple of Justice in Monrovia. Picture credit: Reuters/James Harding Giahyue

By Gabriel M. Dixon

MONROVIA – The Monrovia City Court has issued an arrest warrant for 10 people for their alleged involvement in unlawful logging activities, first revealed to the public in an investigation by The DayLight.

They include Dawoda Sesay, a former police commander, Varney Marshall, a former ranger with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), and Beomjin Lee, a Korean national.

They have been charged with property theft, forgery, economic sabotage, criminal conspiracy, criminal facilitation and bribery. A police inquest found the men felled a number of first-class logs in Gbarpolu County and attempted to ship them through the Freeport of Monrovia.

“These people will go in the bushes fell the trees, cut the logs, and use bogus documents in order to evade taxes, and will use those documents to ship the containers of logs out of Liberia,” Police Inspector General Patrick Sudue told a news conference last week.

The DayLight had broken the story and went on to assist the police in their investigation, providing them with important pieces of information that would lead to the charges.

The newspaper, which focuses on environmental investigations, first published on 14^th August last year that the FDA had arrested three container trucks loaded with illegally harvested timber nearly a month earlier.

The paper would go on to publish a detailed account of the illicit activity that same month, naming members of the syndicate and the role they played in the illegal harvest. Not long after that, the FDA petitioned the circuit courts in Bomi and Gbarpolu to auction the logs, orders it is yet to be granted.

The DayLight also published a leaked video, revealing Marshall’s own illegal logging operations. Marshall can be held in the video complaining over his accomplice’s attempt to cheat him while filming huge piles of boxlike wood, commonly called “Kpokolo.” Pictures apparently taken by another accomplice show the depth of Marshall’s criminal operations, including loads of containers of kpokolo.

On Monday, the FDA announced it has dismissed Marshall, citing the report and charges against him at the Monrovia City Court. “A video circulated on social media and reported by The DayLight online media captured Mr. Marshal’s open engagement in illegal logging activities, a vice he was hired to prevent and combat,” the FDA said in a statement. It added that Marshall had admitted in an inhouse probe.

FDA also said it has suspended Edward Jallah without pay, another FDA ranger captured in The DayLight’s initial report that eventually led to the city court’s charges.

Tag: Forestry Development Authority

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