Monrovia – The board chair of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), Mr. Harrison S. Karnwea, is appealing to Liberia’s international partners, who are providing some forms of supports to the nation’s forest sector, to continue their support.
“We call on all of our partners to continue to support us until we reach the milestone very soon; we want them to do even a little more. We want to save the forests,” Mr. Karnwea said.
He reminded those partners that the forests make more money while standing than when they have been cut down; adding, “This country remains the lung of the sub-region.”
He and other spoke last Thursday, November 26, at the close of a three-day Liberia-European Union Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT). It was at during the eighth sitting of the Joint Implementation Committee (JIC), which aims to promote sustainable forest governance through partnership.
Speaking further the FDA Board Chair emphasized that Liberia’s mode of farming, which is slashing the forest and burning, and moving from one spot to another every farming season is reducing the forests.
“In order to stop this, we have got to do some sustainable farming practices and they are very expensive: land preparation. If you go to Grand Gedeh or River Gee and you want to clear a swamp to lay it out for rice [planting], you will need a front-dozer,” he stated.
He told the Europeans, who were some of the major partners attending the meeting, that when Liberia’s partners invest US$20 million in forest conservation activities to save the forests, but can’t afford to get the nation one front-dozer, “it becomes problematic.”
“Then the question is where does the money go? US$20M. How can we buy two or three bulldozers to clear the swamps and make it possible for the people to have a stationary farming instead of cutting the forests here, there and yonder?”
Mr. Karnwea further told his audience, some of whom attended the 3-day meeting virtually because of the Covid-19 pandemic, that when he and others attend some international conferences outside Liberia, sometimes some groups approach them saying, “We have these varieties of eggplants [Garden Egg] which when you plant them on one hectare [2.5 acres], your harvest is going to be more than 100 tons.”
He stressed that because those things have never reached them, “Our people continue to move from place to place and doing the same thing. We can’t continue doing the same thing and expect different results.”
He also reminded his audience that “Community Forest Management” has now become the new legal way of jumping into the forests. He emphasized that if they at FDA and partners don’t want those communities contracting the forests to commercial loggers, “We need to support those communities so that they do sustainable business themselves. In that particular case, we wouldn’t be talking about 25 years, maybe 30 or more years. Because they will be processing the woods right within their communities; they will sell the finished products right here in Liberia and if they do export, they will export for good money.”
He stressed that the challenge was theirs as partners to support Liberia’s forest sector so as to stop the rate at which the forest is being consumed.
He used the occasion to call for concerted efforts on how to make the soil more productive so as to reduce the rate at which farmers cut down the forests to make farms.
As he appreciated the support of the partners, he called for the introduction of “innovative ways” to do sustainable farming, to do sustainable logging, to transform the timber products into finished products so that Liberia cannot be importing finished timber products from outside.
Also speaking, Ambassador Laurent Delahousse, Head of Delegation of the European Union in Liberia, thanked every participant for the “spirit of commitment that had been shown” over those three days and towards the process.
“You have set a new timeline; you have committed to new deadlines, objectives: it’s not 100 percent, obviously but nothing is 100 percent,” Amb. Delahousse said.
“I want to salute the spirit in which all members participated today and to say how the EU and the UK are committed to supporting all stakeholders in Liberia to both develop and implement sustainable forestry practices and to save the forest,” the EU Head of Delegation said.
He reminded Liberians that they still have most of the beautiful West Africa forests that most of their neighbors have not been “so careful” to protect.
Amb. Delahousse also spoke of the degradation to the forest and harmful practices that are endangering the biodiversity.
“Our generation is certainly the biggest criminal generation of all of humankinds ever. It’s not too late to stop the massacre; it is not too late to find new ways to bring balance between preservation and conservation on one hand and the absolute necessity as human of providing to the needs of our species. But to do it in a way that is not detrimental to all other species that we share this beautiful planet with,” he added.
“You are blessed in Liberia with bio-nature; let us all together respect this nature. Let us work to benefit from its fruits but let’s do it in a way that ensures our children, our grandchildren and after them more future generations will also benefit from it,” Amb. Delahousse stated.
At the end of the 8th JIC, which convened at a local hotel in Monrovia, the EU and Liberia agreed that key decisions and action points from the meeting would be reviewed, documented, and signed during the Formal Session. Liberia and the EU further agreed that due to the density of JIC discussions at the 8th JIC, the full Aide Memoire documenting the meeting would undergo a more detailed review and be signed by both parties within seven days of the meeting.
During the official opening, “The EU and Liberia agreed that there is a need to further accelerate Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) implementation and improve Liberia’s global competitiveness by sustainably managing the forest. The parties agreed that the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID 19) is something the world must live with and therefore it is not an excuse to delay the implementation of the VPA.