Liberia’s Forestry Sector Underthreat

Community forest in Liberia

Accra, Ghana, November 12, 2018//-Liberia is seeing in a new age of progressive, community forestry that – if done right – has the potential to be an exemplary model for others to follow, according to Global Witness’ latest report.

But the community forestry permitting system is being hijacked by rapacious logging companies and a complicit Forestry Development Authority of Liberia.

The report dubbed-‘Power to the People? How Companies Are Exploiting Community Forestry in Liberia’ added: “Logging companies are enlisting local elites and coercing communities into signing secret agreements that grant them logging rights, in return for them financing the process communities are required to follow in order to obtain Authorised Forest Community status”.

The picture uncovered by Global Witness which is an international NGO that works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide, in its report looks very much like a re-run of the scandal that surrounded Private Use Permits – a system of forestry licences designed for small operators that was hijacked by large rapacious logging companies.

“Over 2.5 million hectares, or 23 percent of the land area of Liberia, was handed over illegally to loggers through these permits up until their cancellation by presidential decree in 2013.

Our research also points to companies affiliated to the notorious Malaysian company, Samling Global, playing a leading role in pressing control over Liberia’s rich and diverse forest ecosystems, away from communities, and for themselves”, according to the Executive Summary of the report.

The report continued: “It is perhaps no surprise that Samling-linked companies, which came in for some of the most severe criticism in the official investigation into Private Use Permits yet were never sanctioned, are coming back with a vengeance.

It is imperative that the Liberian government and its international donors, notably Norway, now act to ensure large-scale loggers are not getting their hands on community forests for short-term profits”.

Following a civil war that ransacked the country’s rainforests, in 2006 a new National Forestry Reform Law was created. For the first time ever, communities would have control over their forests, as well as a share of any revenues that the forests generated.

This was a ground-breaking recognition that communities – not the state or logging companies – would control these forests, a precious environmental resource and biodiversity hotspot as well as the source of livelihood, food, water and shelter for many.

Compared in particular to neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, Liberia has been the most progressive in its recognition of the right of those whose lives depend most directly on forests to play a leading role in managing them, through Community Forest Management Agreements.

Against this backdrop, a number of logging companies have entered the frame, bent on twisting this new model of community forestry in Liberia to their own ends.

Instead of collaborating with communities and giving them the space to negotiate agreements about what happens to their forests, they are taking advantage of weak rules and insufficient guidelines and disempowering many through their deception.

The report shows how certain logging companies have been undermining community forestry in Liberia in the following ways in particular.

Undermining the Nine Steps process by which local people acquire community forests and which lies at the heart of this exemplary and progressive model: Companies are entering early in the process and taking control over community forests before they have even been awarded.

Some companies readily admit that they actively seeking out community forests as a route to making good profits from logging.

Pressuring local people into signing secret contracts: Logging companies are drawing communities into what would be a contract by any other name. Whilst some companies and individuals are clearly benefitting from agreeing to these deals, their secrecy means that companies, brokers and elites are free to make decisions that serve their own interests rather than those of the community as a whole.

There is no opportunity for the terms of the agreement to be openly negotiated so the community is denied the right to scrutinise agreements that give away their forest resources and will impact their livelihoods.

Enlisting and co-opting local elites: There is evidence that logging companies are working with influential elites to sign secret agreements that grant them logging rights and thus prising Liberia’s forest ecosystems away from communities, undermining the very purpose of community rights for forest lands in the first place.

Exploiting legal loopholes: Companies are focusing on obtaining what are categorised as medium-scale community forests as these allow them to maximise their profitability whilst keeping them in the least-regulated category.

Underpinning all of these and other sharp practices described in this report is coercion and deliberate misleading of those who should benefit most from community forests.

Logging companies have been conducting a below the radar campaign to persuade community members that they need them, and pushing a perception that only they have the technical knowledge to manage a community forest.

Many are systematically driving community forestry permit applications and becoming actively involved well before the permits are approved, despite this being illegal.

They are financing the application process and, in order to secure these investments, they have tied communities into contracts but have been unclear about costs and if, how or when communities will need to pay money back.

Some of these companies are opaque with unclear ownership. In other cases, there are apparent links to the Malaysian logging giant Samling Global, raising alarm bells that this notorious company is seeking domination over Liberia’s forests once again.

The area these permits cover is vast, and loggers are poised to cause irreparable damage to Liberia’s rainforests. The total 133 community forests would, if all approved, amount to an estimated area of 4.3 million hectares, or 45 percent of Liberia.

Nowhere is this illustrated more starkly than in the case of the Garwin community forest. The community forestry agreement for this large, rich forest has been subject to significant interference from a powerful and politically connected Liberian family, whom the community say have coerced them into signing a series of company-community agreements.

Boundaries of this community forest appear to have been incorrectly drawn while local citizens have been silenced and ignored. This is a critical crossroads for Liberia.

As the Garwin community forest shows, abuse of community forestry agreements is already taking hold. Rather than empowering communities as intended, the way community forestry is rolling out in Liberia is having the opposite effect, disempowering them and pushing them into debt.

If community governance structures aren’t set up carefully then benefits, and costs, that do accrue to communities will not be shared fairly between different groups.

Communities are becoming indebted to logging companies, and short-cuts in community self-identification will lead to resentment about one group of local citizens benefiting more than the other, precipitating a serious risk of future conflict.

The failures documented in this report surrounding community forestry applications and implementation sets the scene for the kind of land disputes that precipitated Liberia’s collapse into civil conflict in the 1980s.

Liberian authorities like the Forestry Development Authority together with Norway, the European Union and UK must act now to avoid this.

Detailed recommendations but key amongst these are:

The Forestry Development Authority should suspend the approval of any more community forests until a full and effective regulatory framework is in place, along with associated guidance, templates, technical assistance, transparency and accountability mechanisms.

Norway, the European Union and the UK should insist on an independent investigation into the legality of all current permits. This review must inspect each permit and application individually and investigate any suspicion of company involvement and elite capture.

Norway should review its Liberia Forest Sector Project to ensure that this flagship project to mitigate climate change will deliver the expectations of the 2014 agreement between Norway and Liberia, and not lead to deforestation in Liberia.

The Government of Liberia should cancel all agreements between communities and logging companies that pre-date the approval of a community forestry permit, to send a clear signal that these agreements are illegal, and undermine the essence of community forestry: to empower communities.

African Eye Report

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