Liberia forests sold off in secret logging contracts: Report
September 07 2012 at 23:11
In Summary
* An investigation by Global Witness has shown how, despite efforts to
reform the country's logging sector, companies have used a legal loophole to
score contracts covering a quarter of the nation's landmass
* The report comes after President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced on
Friday an independent probe into the controversial permits, after suspending
the managing director of the Forestry Development Authority, Moses Wogbeh
* Liberia's forests make up 42 percent of what is left of the Upper
Guinean Rainforest -- just part of a fragmented system that once covered
most of west Africa but has been reduced to 12 percent of its original reach
DAKAR
Forty percent of Liberia's forests have been sold off in secretive and often
illegal contracts, Global Witness said Tuesday, just days after the
country's president announced a probe into the issuing of logging permits.
An investigation by the London-based natural resource watchdog has shown
how, despite efforts to reform the country's logging sector, companies have
used a legal loophole to score contracts covering a quarter of the nation's
landmass.
The report comes after President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced on Friday
an independent probe into the controversial permits, after suspending the
managing director of the Forestry Development Authority, Moses Wogbeh.
"The new logging contracts termed Private Use Permits now cover 40 percent
of Liberia's forests and almost half of Liberia's best intact forests," said
a press release from Global Witness.
"They have given companies linked to notorious Malaysian logging giant
Samling unparalleled access to some of Liberia's most pristine forests."
Samling and its subsidiaries have been involved in cases of illegal logging
from Cambodia to Guyana to Papua New Guinea.
The Private Use Permits were designed to allow private land owners to cut
trees on their property. But the investigation found that the 66 permits
that have been issued are in fact allowing logging companies to sneak past
Liberia's carefully crafted forest laws and regulations.
"Companies holding these permits are not required to log sustainably and pay
little in compensation to either the Liberian government or the people who
own the forests for the right to export valuable tropical timber," Global
Witness said.
"Private Use Permits are great news for logging companies. They are very bad
news for pretty much everybody else in Liberia," said Robert Nyahn of Save
My Future Foundation, which also took part in the investigation.
Liberia's forests make up 42 percent of what is left of the Upper Guinean
Rainforest -- just part of a fragmented system that once covered most of
west Africa but has been reduced to 12 percent of its original reach.
Deforestation has been alarming, with 70 percent of the population involved
in slash-and-burn farming, the country's Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) told AFP in 2010.
While the use of "blood diamonds" to fund wars in the region is better
known, it was timber that propped up armed factions, notably those of former
president Charles Taylor, during 14 years of Liberian conflict that left
over 250,000 people dead from 1989 to 2003.
In the nine years since the end of the conflict the Liberian government and
international partners have worked hard to reform the industry, with the
United States giving $30 million to help communities manage their forest
resources.
The EU and the Liberian government have also recently negotiated a trade
agreement meant to ensure that Liberia provides legal timber to European
markets.
United Nations sanctions on the country's timber industry were lifted in
2006 and the government issued new licences covering nine percent of the
country.
Global Witness said these new contracts have failed to deliver the promised
benefits to the Liberian people and that many of these companies owe
significant back taxes.
Silas Siakor of Liberia's Sustainable Development Institute said recent
statements by the president on the logging scandal were "promising".
"Too frequently, those who abuse Liberia's natural resources have not been
held to account," he was quoted as saying in the Global Witness press
statement, calling for a comprehensive independent investigation.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's 2010 deforestation
report, Africa has lost 3.4 million hectares (8.4 million acres) of forest
in the past 10 years.
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Received on Fri Sep 07 2012 - 17:42:53 EDT
