Top: Newly elected members of Mavasagueh Community Forest. The DayLight/Ojuku Kangar
By Emmanuel Sherman
VAMBO TOWNSHIP – Eleven townspeople have been elected to a community forest leadership in Grand Bassa County, calming months of tension over their towns’ alleged misrepresentation.
Mavasagueh Community Forest’s previous election, held in August last year, was marred by irregularities, prompting fresh elections. Those elected include representatives from Boe, Borbor Kaykay, and Togar Towns. Zeogar, the twelfth town, was disqualified because its representative serves as a town chief, debarred from direct community forest activities.
“Now that we have been elected, we will do the proper thing for the affected towns and the Vambo Township,” said Ojuku Kangar, a community assembly representative from Boe Town, one of the 11 elected persons.
Wooded areas get community forest status when they complete nine legal steps, including establishing a governance structure. This structure comprises a day-to-day forest management body, a supervising executive committee, and a topmost decision-making assembly.
“We will form unity with our counterpart as a community assembly to hold the company accountable to our contract,” added Kangar, a DayLight affiliate.
The election in Mavasagueh has eased tensions in the Compound Number Town area, following months of hostilities. Before the election, townspeople protested for representation in the leadership. There was an imbalance in the allocation of projects in the 39 towns that own the 26,003-hectare forest.
The elections could also lead to the unfreezing of the community forest’s account, which was frozen after funds were misapplied. Kangar said more signatories would be added to the account to reflect inclusion. “We will ensure the FDA includes us in the bank account,” he said.
Citizens blamed the FDA for the chaos. The regulator conducted inadequate awareness, leading to some towns not participating in Mavasagueh’s formation, according to civil society and locals. That finding was corroborated by an investigative series over the last five months.
Daniel Dayougar, the former Vambo Commissioner, was accused of handpicking representatives to serve on Mavasagueh’s assembly. Dayougar denies any wrongdoing.
Amid the chaos, C&C Corporation, the logging company Mavasagueh’s leadership signed a contract with, has been operating. So far, it has paved dirt roads in the area and has harvested logs that are being stored at Krish Veneer Industries, a sawmill in Buchanan, a few miles away.
“All of our logs are taken to Buchanan without benefit. This is what happened during RETCO days until we blocked the roads and chased them out,” said Zechariah Boima, of Togar Town. He was referencing RETCO Liberia Timber Industry, a company that worked here in the 1990s and paid the community L$10,000 (roughly US$90 today).
The FDA did not respond to queries. However, Kangar David, head of the agency’s sub-office in Buchanan, who conducted the election, urged the new leadership to work in Mavasagueh’s interest.
The election is yet another proof of Mavasagueh’s flawed formation. It has already been established that the FDA skipped legal steps in granting it a community forest status. C&C Corporation is illegitimate because its owner, Clarence Massaquoi, is an ineligible logger. Krish Veneer, the company’s buyer, operates on the FDA Managing Director Rudolph Merab’s family land with an ineligible status. The forest overlaps a private land that two men are claiming.
This is a Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ) production.
