WILLIAM Q. HARMON
Africa-Press – Liberia. The Presidential candidate of the Liberian People’s Party (LPP) has called on the government to immediately halt its ongoing negotiation with UAE-based Blue Carbon for the acquisition of one million hectares of forest land for carbon sequestration in the country.
Cllr. Taiwan Gongloe described the proposed aàcarbon concession as outrageous, as it not only violates various Liberian laws, and the rights of customary land-owning communities but also threatens the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people in rural Liberia.
“We are therefore calling on the government to halt the ongoing negotiation with Blue Carbon for 1 million hectares of forest land for a Carbon Concession,” Gongloe said in a statement released by his party on July 18.
Before a deal can be reached, the legal luminary noted, the representatives of the parties to the negotiation table should cease ongoing talks until communities that will be affected are identified, adequately informed of the potential social and economic impacts of the would-be agreement, and secure their consent.
Like the LPP and its standard bearer, many land rights and conservation advocates fear that the agreement, which the government is reportedly on the verge of signing, could be detrimental to the country, especially in the areas of the rule of law and the empowerment of Liberians.
The Independent Forest Monitoring Coordination Mechanism (IFMCM), a forest watchdog, cautioned the government against the deal because it would violate national laws that govern the forestry sector, with emphasis on the Community Rights Law of 2009 with Respect to Forest Lands and the Land Rights Law of 2018.
Both laws grant customary communities the right to Free Prior and Informed Consent for any activity that may impact their land and the forest.
“We are concerned about the granting of exclusive carbon rights to Blue Carbon, especially in the absence of adequate community participation in the negotiation,” the group said in a statement on July 17.
The forestry law prohibits the government from including private land in forestry contracts and said forestry contract areas must not exceed 400,000 hectares.
“Allocating 1 million hectares under a single contract and including communities Customary Land in the said contract would violate the forestry law,” Gongloe said in the statement on Tuesday.
Communities have the right to control the use, protection, management, and development of community forest resources.
The Land Rights Law of 2018 protects communities’ Customary Land rights, whether or not the community has a Deed for the land, and guarantees that the existence, validity, and/or enforceability of the Ownership of Customary Land shall not be affected because of the lack of title document or prior registration.
“Allocating communities’ Customary Land to Blue Carbon would violate their rights under these laws,” he said.
The Government has an obligation to protect the land rights of customary communities across the country – entering into this agreement with Blue Carbon would contravene that sacred responsibility.
“This obligation the government cannot and should not ignore with this carbon harvesting investment plan,” the LPP leader said.
In 2022, according to Global Forest Watch, Liberia recorded the highest primary forest loss since 2001, an alarming situation that conservationists and other activists say needs government intervention.
But the proposed agreement with Blue Carbon, which on its surface may appear to offer an opportunity to reverse this alarming trend of deforestation, violates the rights and threatens the livelihoods and wellbeing of tens of thousands of Liberians.
“Blue Carbon must therefore discontinue negotiation with the Government of Liberia until it is presented with evidence that would-be affected communities have given their Free Prior and Informed Consent as required under Liberian law,” Gongloe said.
The Liberian forestry sector has been plagued with numerous controversies for decades now. The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has, over the last 13 years, repeatedly engaged in various illegalities that have cost the country millions of dollars in unpaid and lost revenue, activists say.
In 2009 and 2010, the government of Liberia at the behest of the FDA entered into 4 Forest Management Contracts (FMCs), 5 Timber Sale Contracts, and 23 Private Use Permits covering.
A LEITI audit of those contracts revealed that all of the 32 contracts and permits were non-compliant with various laws governing forestry; simply put, all of these contracts were illegal.
In 2012, a Presidential-appointed Special Independent Investigative Body (SIIB) examined 63 Private Use Permits, covering 2.5 million hectares of forest. The SIIB confirmed widespread illegalities during the issuance of these permits. The report concluded that the level of abuse of power and public trust that characterized the transactional relationship that evolved amongst various actors in the forestry sector, was led and sanctioned by FDA.
It also said that the FDA failed to comply with the National Forest Management Strategy (NFMS) that states in its objective that the FDA – allocate and manage Liberia’s remaining 4.39 million hectares of forest as either forest management contract areas, and timber sales contract areas, community management areas, or protected areas to capture, develop and preserve the wide range of forest resource benefits.
As a result of these illegalities, the government has lost millions in taxes and millions more remain unpaid. Some of the companies owing millions in taxes have already fled the country and the logging industry is in near collapse.
In the same vein, since the George Weah-led government took over in 2018, illegalities in the sector have intensified, forest watchdogs and activists have said.
The Associated Press on February 21, cited various reports describing a “network of illicit sawmills, off-the-books exports, and payments made to the Liberia forestry agency that were not deposited in official accounts”
A 2023 audit of 5 Forest Management Contracts and 6 operations in Community Forest Management Agreement areas found that only one company met the minimum standards, including a legally executed contract, a legal corporate identity, and a posted performance bond.
None of the remaining 10 companies had the legal right to log. Additionally, none of the 11 companies met all the thresholds in law necessary to avoid termination, and all 11 Operators were financially in arrears—in excess of US$31.5 million—to the Government of Liberia (GoL), as well as to the communities most affected by their logging.
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