Liberia’s legal framework requires that the communities most affected by industrial logging should also share in the benefits. Accordingly, the Government of Liberia (GoL) collects land-rental fees from industrial logging operations with the intent to redistribute some to these communities.
Recent research by Forest Trends found that the GoL owes nearly US$25 million to communities impacted by industrial logging, including $9 million that the GoL already collected years ago but has not yet disbursed. Forest Trends calls on the government to fulfill its legal commitments, starting immediately with the disbursement of the remaining $9 million already collected for impacted communities.
This failure to equitably share logging revenues according to the law jeopardizes not just the forestry sector and rule of law in Liberia, but also the development prospects of communities nationwide. For Liberia’s donor community, on which the government heavily depends, these issues highlight significant concerns about the state of the country’s public finance sector, particularly regarding transparency, accountability, and resource management efficiency, as well as its commitment to poverty eradication.
Following the release of these findings, the GoL released $300,000 of the payments owed to the communities. Forest Trends commends this action but urges the GoL to fulfil its legal obligation to disburse the full $9 million already collected and owed to the affected communities, and to start collecting the additional $16 million owed by the logging companies.
Moving forward, GoL has an opportunity to demonstrate leadership by paying the full amount owed to communities. Taking decisive action on these issues would send a strong signal of commitment to transparency, accountability, and the equitable development of rural Liberia.
Key recommendations for the GoL based on Forest Trends’ report include:
- Demonstrate leadership by improving public reporting on all payments by logging companies.
- Streamline the way land-rental fees are transitioned from companies to affected communities.
- Fulfill legal commitments by collecting and disbursing the money owed to communities in a timely manner, starting with the $9 million that has already been collected by the GoL but not yet distributed.
- Conduct a comprehensive review of other compensation payments and contractual obligations due to communities, as it is likely that these communities have been similarly shortchanged by logging operators and other extractive industries in the delivery of social obligations within their contractual frameworks (such as promised infrastructure development). This was a key finding in Forest Trends’ Liberia Forest Concession Review: Phase II.
“Industrial logging not only impacts forests, but it can have devastating impacts on the communities who depend on them for their lives and livelihoods,” says Michael Jenkins, Forest Trends’ Founding President and CEO. “It is critical that affected communities are adequately compensated.”
“By paying what is owed, the Government of Liberia can demonstrate leadership, right a historic wrong, and support the development of rural people most affected by industrial logging,” says Arthur Blundel, the report’s author and a Senior Advisor on Forest Finance and Governance at Forest Trends.
The full report, Payments from Liberia’s Industrial Forestry Sector the National Benefits Sharing Trust, can be downloaded here.
Read the first installment of this report, which examines community benefits-sharing in Liberia’s forest sector from 2007-2019, here.
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Forest Trends works to conserve forests and other ecosystems through the creation and wide adoption of a broad range of environmental finance, markets, and other payment and incentive mechanisms.
Forest Trends’ Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative aims to promote policies which harness the power of market incentives for the legal, sustainable, and equitable trade in timber and other commodities harvested from forest landscapes.