Citizens Reject Sarpo Park Extension In Sinoe

Locals calling themselves, Movement for Citizens Action (MCA) of Wecaba Statutory District, Sinoe County, have rejected the extension of the Sarpo National Park (SNP). SNP is situated in four statutory districts of the six Sarpo-speaking language in Sinoe.
And those districts involved are Wedjah, Juarzon, Carbadae and Seekon who have unanimously agreed not to honor the 2003 alleged “illegal extension nor acknowledge” any further engagement with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA).
The locals accused the Authority, the regulator of natural parks in Liberia of alleged “cheat” by denying them social and economic developments, such as safe drinking water, schools, clinics, hospitals, electricity among others.
With that, the residents have filed a formal complaint against the Forestry Development Authority dated Thursday, 12 December, 2019, with their Representative, Matthew Zarzar, of Electoral District #3, Sinoe County.
Carbon copy (cc) of that statement was sent to Superintendent Lee Nagbe Chea; Legislative Caucus of the County; Traditional Leaders; Forestry Development Authority, and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).
It was signed by J. Morris Suah, Secretary General and Chief Spokes Person, and Dixon K. Browne, Chairman of MCA, but most importantly, attested with thumb prints as signatories of the residents of towns like Funnioh, Jallay, Chewlue, Geelor, Bilibokree, Gbalawreh, Wiah, and Chebior. Others were Bardua, Shadee, Korjayee, Jardiah, Kieh, Sargbeh, Jarwee, Solee and Gboyce Towns.
The people want the FDA to establish a Forestry Training Institute at the Sarpo National Park, construct modern housing units for community dwellers around the Park, provide tangible livelihood programmes that will benefit those communities and to provide 709 employment opportunities to Sinoeans like the position of Chief Park Warden and compensation for the land presently occupied by the FDA in Jallay Town and other areas outside of the Park.
Other demands include that the FDA provides scholarships for both university and high school students from those communities, an apology from the FDA for the unprovoked attack and use of excessive force resulting into the deaths and looting of properties in 2011 and, 2017, and that families of those that lost their lives be compensated by the FDA including that of Gban Gbowee who was killed by a tree which fell on him while on volunteer duty for the FDA.
Also, they request that the FDA compensates and treats a young lady, Emma Chellah hit by a FDA vehicle leaving her completely incapacitated and abandoned after the accident in early 2019; and that the FDA compensates those whose crops were damaged by elephants and other animals from the Park, constructs clinics and maintain the roads leading to the Park’s headquarters and other communities.
The residents demanded that latrines and hand pumps be constructed by the FDA; the Park’s entrance fees be paid to the citizens; provide electricity to those residing in and around the Sarpo National Park Headquarters and that the FDA eliminates its volunteering programmes used to exploit the community members as there is no such programme in government programmes.
MCA said since their last conference with the FDA after an unprovoked attack by rangers resulting into two community members killed in July of 2017 in Chabior Town, Sinoe County, the FDA has woefully failed to implement their portion of the agreement as enshrined in the Greenville Resolution.
“The Community without compensation, voluntarily risks the lives of young men and women to go into the forest to dislodge the illegal occupants that have been exploiting the resources from the park as mandated by the Greenville Resolution. This was one of the first issues indicated into the resolution,” the release noted.
It went further that the FDA was to provide tangible livelihood programs that will benefit the Community. The resolution also mandated the FDA to provide 60% employment opportunities to Community dwellers.
“It is worth mentioning here that the FDA in 2017 /18 awarded and implemented two major livelihood projects in the tune of US$2.5 Million each to Grand Gedeh and River Gee Counties still ongoing. They have since awarded a major project to a European International Governmental Agency called Spark under the Liberia Forest Sector project ID PLS4L1, 4 and grant lD TF24Z7 in January of 2018.” The release stated.
“We have seen the FDA increasing their enforcement capabilities and subjecting the community with their millions of Dos and Don’ts. It is in light of this, that we the Sarpo Community including Wediah, Juarzon, Carbadae and Seekon unanimously agreed that we will not honor the 2003 illegal extension nor acknowledge any further engagement with the FDA,” the release added.
Sarpo National Park is a national park in Sinoe County, Liberia. It is the country’s largest of rainforest, and contains the second-largest area of primary tropical rainforest in West Africa after Taï National Park in neighboring Côte d’Ivoire. Agriculture, construction, fishing, hunting, human settlement, and logging are prohibited in the Park.
The Park is located in the Upper Guinean forest ecosystem, a biodiversity hotspot that has “the highest mammal species diversity of any region in the world”, according to , and in the Western Guinean lowland forests ecoregion, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature’s ecoregions classification scheme.
In 1976, the Liberian Forestry Development Authority was created to manage and preserve the country’s forest resources. A year later, in 1977, the Division of Wildlife and National Parks was formed under the leadership of Alexander Peal, who served as its head until 1990.
By 1982, seven protected areas were proposed in Liberia, including three national parks. Of these, only Sarpo National Park — named after the local Sarpo tribe — was formally designated, in 1983, by the People’s Redemption Council.
At the time, and for twenty years, it covered an area of 1,308 km2 (505 sq miles) east of the Sinoe River and south of the Putu Mountains. The park’s original boundaries were set and its management plan drafted by the Division of Wildlife and National Parks, in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund, the World Conservation Union, and the Peace Corps.
Throughout its history, Sarpo National Park has been threatened by illegal farming, hunting, logging, and mining, “all exacerbated by the country’s grinding poverty” and social and political instability.
However, in the early 1990, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre reported that “rural development projects around the Park and general acceptance of its existence have helped to minimise potential conflicts.”
Until the 1990s, poaching was limited due to various initiatives, funded by the United States Agency for International Development, that made local villagers stakeholders to the park’s preservation; reported by Throble Kaffa Suah.