The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has constituted a four-member working Taskforce aim at ensuring compliance to further enhance forest governance in the country.
The four-member Taskforce which is named, ‘Community Forest Management Review Task Force’ has also been mandated to carry on a comprehensive review of the planning process of the third-party managed community forest.
Those making up the committee include Atty. Yanquoi Z. Dolo, chairperson and Mr. John Mckay, co-chairperson, while Atty. Gertrude Nyaley and Mr. Edward Kamara will serve as members respectively.
The FDA is a leading authority in West Africa which provides quality, sustainable and transformative forest and wildlife resources management for the socio-economic prosperity of Liberians, while also contributing to national and global benefits.
The core values of the FDA are to ensure good stewardship through transparency, teamwork, accountability, efficiency, good governance and integrity.
However, addressing a news conference yesterday at his FDA office in Wien Town, Mount Baclay, the FDA’s Managing Director, C. Mike Doyean, stated that the committee shall also fully utilize the resources and expertise of the Law Enforcement Division and the Confiscation Unit of the FDA during its time of operation.
MD Doyean indicated that the overall objective of the process is to conduct as comprehensive review of authorized community forest planning process in order to identify compliance at the level of planning requirements and harvesting requirements of the community forests actors across Liberia.
According to him, the team will also conduct a week-long desk review before its first monitoring filed visit; emphasizing that during the period of the desk review, no new export permit from commercial use contractors will be processed.
He added, “The Taskforce will however process export permits that are already in the custody of the FDA and only when the has been a desk review of the applicant communities and their respective contractors, and the team will execute the mentioned mandate within 100 days commencing August 30, 2021, and that all reports will be submitted to my office for action.”
The FDA boss further stated that the decision is against the backdrop that Liberia has up to 43 percent of the remaining portion of the upper Guinea Tropical Rain Forest which constitutes a significant portion of the forest in the region, as such, they are under obligation to maintain said tittle.
He explained that several reforms have informed Liberia’s current forest management, which has community forestry as a significant component, and as such, communities have utilized their forest through the community forest management program implemented by the FDA for economic, social and environmental benefits.
MD Doyean further maintained, “Communities have also exercised their rights to forest resources through several means including the third-party forest management agreements and these agreements grant third parties the rights to community forests resources such as logging companies.”
Meanwhile, MD Doyean has also disclosed that the Liberian government and the Community Forest Management Union have reached an understanding that the government directly deposits 30 percent of the Land Rental Fees to the account established for said purpose, adding that, in the coming days, the government has already paid its inherited arrears of US$200,000.