Summary:
- With erratic weather crippling agriculture, thousands of rural Liberians are turning to charcoal for survival—fueling deforestation and putting the country’s climate goals at risk.
- Mangroves and old-growth forests under threat as weak enforcement and lack of data mean charcoal is largely invisible in national climate planning.
- Clean energy efforts stall, due to cost, broken equipment, and lack of market access, forcing communities back to tree cutting and deepening poverty.
By Aria Deemie, climate and environment reporter with New Narratives
SENJEH DISTRICT, Bomi County, Liberia — Sweat beads on Charles McGill’s brow as he lifts a cutlass and slams it into a log, the forest crackling with midday heat. At 89, he should be resting. Instead, he’s helping fuel Liberia’s booming charcoal trade, one of the few ways people here survive.
“There’s no diamond work here, no gold work,” said McGill, a retired soldier. “The only diamond work we have is this coal. Everybody in this town is making coal.”
With farming failing under climate stress, thousands of Liberians are turning to charcoal production to survive — a shift experts say is accelerating forest loss and undermining climate commitments. A 2019 World Bank report estimated more than 14,000 people were directly involved in charcoal production, supporting nearly 28,000 full-time jobs. At that time more than eight in every ten rural Liberians lived below the national poverty line. While more recent data is not available, economists think it likely poverty has worsened since then in the wake of the Covid pandemic and the growing impacts of climate change on subsistence farming.
In a 2024 FrontPage/New Narratives survey of 300 farmers all said farming had become unviable in recent years thanks to unpredictable rainfall and increased temperatures. More and more of them have told reporters that they are turning to charcoal production to replace lost farms.
While progress has been made in reducing dependence on wood for fuels in other African countries, in Liberia it is still high. Charcoal remains the primary cooking fuel for 52 percent of households; and another 45 percent rely on firewood, census data show.
Mangroves Also Under Threat
Winston Benda Henries, director of conservation group SAMFU, said the threat extends well beyond inland woodlands. “It’s not only in the terrestrial areas but in the coastal areas too, where we’re working with communities to stop the harvesting of mangroves,” he said.
In some coastal towns, he said, residents believe charcoal made from mangroves burns longer and hotter than that made from inland wood, making it more desirable.
These trends have renewed fears for Liberia’s forests — both inland and along the coast.
Between 2002 and 2023, the country lost about 347,000 hectares of humid primary forest — roughly 15 percent of its tree cover, according to Global Forest Watch. This figure does not fully capture mangrove loss, which is also significant. Experts say if deforestation continues unchecked in both terrestrial and coastal areas, Liberia’s ecosystems could face collapse with severe consequences for the country and its people.
Biodiversity loss occurs when forests and ecosystems are degraded or destroyed—mainly through deforestation, illegal mining, logging, agriculture, and wildlife hunting—leading to the decline or extinction of native species. As habitats shrink or are polluted, animals lose food and breeding grounds, while plant species are uprooted or replaced, weakening the ecosystems that support both people and nature. Forests can quickly become grasslands.
Increase in Charcoal Production Threatens Liberia’s Climate Commitments
Liberia has a regulation requiring commercial charcoal producers to register their operations 30 days before starting. But in response to inquiries from FrontPage Africa/New Narratives, the Forestry Development Authority admitted it has “no centralized database” to track who’s licensed and who isn’t.
Private landowners making charcoal for household use don’t need a license, but commercial producers face fines of $50 to $1,000. Still, the FDA said no one has ever been prosecuted.
The loss of Liberia’s forest would also threaten global efforts to fight climate change. One of the world’s largest remaining old growth forests, it is key to the country’s climate commitments under the global Paris Agreement. In its updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), Liberia pledged to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 64 percent by 2030, with land use and forest degradation listed as major contributors.
Experts say that goal is unlikely to be met without serious reforms — and without recognizing the full impact of charcoal. “Even in the energy component of the NDC, they don’t consider charcoal,” said Henries. “They just say forest degradation as a whole body.”
In a statement the Forestry Development Authority said that it will change that. “We collaborate with communities and the Liberia Charcoal Union to promote sustainable practices,” the agency said. “We also plan to amend the regulation to address climate change and forest loss.”
But Henries said the Agency’s understanding of charcoal’s climate impact is flawed.
“The FDA says charcoal isn’t causing enough emissions to be a concern — but how do they know when they don’t collect field data?” he said. “You can’t sit at checkpoints and say you have forest data. You must go to the field.”
He also warned that Liberia’s “priority forests” — areas with the highest biodiversity and carbon storage — are increasingly at risk. “Even if I’m producing the charcoal from a priority forest, how will you be able to know?” he said. “You don’t know from the [charcoal] bag.”
Small-Scale Producers Undercut By Middlemen
The trade, he said, runs in the shadows. Small-scale producers do the hardest work for the least return, while middlemen take the profits. “Because they want to feed their families, they accept whatever little comes to them,” Henries said. “And those financing it dictate the price.”
Caught in this vacuum, producers are left with few options — despite the health and environmental toll.
McGill has watched prices rise, from cents decades ago to about 400 Liberian dollars (roughly $2) per bag today, but prices for food and essentials have also risen.
“That 400 dollars — what can it do??” he asked. “I got my grandchildren, my children, my oldma… that money I share into three: one for food, one for school, one for buying small tablets [medicines].”
McGill is not alone. Norah, a single mother and borrower with BRAC, a global microfinance organization, turned to charcoal after falling into debt. “I credited $LD25,000. Every Wednesday, I have to pay some back. Right now, only here in the bush I can get support,” she said. “That’s why I put myself here.”
For others, like Jallah Kollie, charcoal was not a first choice, but a fallback when all else failed. He once sold footwear in town. “Some of us don’t want to steal and get hurt,” he said. “I was selling slippers. But I couldn’t afford to restock, so I came to the bush.”
Donor-Backed Clean Cook Stove Projects Face Barriers
Emmanuel Yarkpawolo, executive director of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the government is working to reduce charcoal’s toll by promoting cooking that uses less or no charcoal. “We’ve been training women to make efficient cookstoves,” he said, referring to programs in Bong and Nimba counties. “These stoves use a little bit of coal and do a lot of cooking.”
But Yarkpawolo acknowledged that the $US20 cost per stove is out of reach for many. “It’s hard at first, but over time, you save money,” he said. “Still, EPA can only provide guidelines and training. We can’t support everyone individually.”
That gap between policy and reality is visible in Lower Montserrado’s Todee District, where a group of women tried to pivot to a more sustainable model, making charcoal from palm kernel shells instead of trees. The project offered cleaner fuel and better income. But it collapsed before it could take off.
“The machine broke down before we finished training,” said Esther Sigbae, 51. “We were making dense black briquettes — cleaner and longer-burning than traditional charcoal — but now they sit unsold.”
Without repairs or access to buyers, the women returned to cutting trees.
“Nobody’s buying,” Ms. Sigbae said. “So we built an oven again and started burning wood.”
She now supports eight children — four of her own and four left behind by her late sister. With no refrigeration, tools, or transport, most of her vegetables rot before they can reach Monrovia’s markets.
Each woman had contributed just $LD100 — less than 50 cents — mainly to buy food to stay strong after farming and charcoal work. But even that small amount sparked plawor, a fuss. “If you give your share,” Sigbae explained, “what will your children eat at home?”
“We dig with our hands. No tools,” she added. “We thought this could help us stand on our own.”
Now, they’re asking for more than just funding; they want training, market access, and equipment repairs. “We don’t want to just burn bush anymore,” she said. “We want to learn and then teach our friends. But right now, we’re just stuck.”
Seed Project Offers Hope
For producers like McGill and Kollie, agriculture still offers hope. In October, the Ministry of Agriculture launched Seeds4Liberia, a four-year, EU-funded project aimed at improving seed quality and access nationwide. Officials say it will tackle long-standing issues — delayed seed deliveries, uncertified inputs, and weak distribution networks ,while bolstering national food security
But trust is thin.
“They always come after the season,” said McGill. “What good is rice seed when the rain has passed?”
Kollie recalled preparing his field near Radio Bomi in vain. “We cleared the field expecting rice seed from the ministry. It never came,” he said. “Cassava sticks came in June instead of March. What will grow?”
Other countries show what’s possible. In Sierra Leone, donor-backed programs have helped rural families shift to liquefied petroleum gas for cooking, cutting indoor pollution and creating jobs, especially for women.
In Ghana’s Ashanti region, women’s cooperatives produce clean briquettes from farm waste. The briquettes burn longer and with less smoke, and the women earn more. Their success relied on training, equipment, and guaranteed buyers.
Experts insisted Liberia’s producers say they could do the same, if given the chance.
“If they really want us to stop burning coal, they have to give us another way to live,” said McGill. “Until then, we’ll keep going into the forest. We have no choice.”
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by the American Jewish World Service. The donor had no say in the story’s content.
