World Bank/GEF Support Integrated Productivity Conservation in Forests’ Protected Areas

Liberia

liberia is endowed with the major share of the remaining Upper Guinean Tropical Rainforest, a recognized hotspot for biodiversity that is considered a global priority for conservation. Liberia’s forests house a range of important biodiversity, including some 240 tree species, 2,000 flowering plants, 125 mammal and 590 bird species, 74 reptiles and amphibians, and over 1,000 insect species.

In May 2003, based on evidence that suggested that the country’s forestry stocks were being vastly overexploited and used primarily to finance the civil conflict, sanctions imposed on Liberia by the UN Security Council in 2001 were extended to include a ban on timber production and export. To speed up the lifting of the sanctions, an ambitious forest sector reform process was launched in 2004, led by the establishment of the Liberia Forests Initiative (LFI). The process of defining the LFI resulted in a more balanced and integrated development of Liberia’s forests for commercial, community, and conservation uses—the 3 Cs approach, which became the key driving principles for the new forest policy.

The World Bank, through a GEF grant, has recently financed the establishment of an effective park management process in Sapo National Park (SNP), which is recognized as the most pristine tract of forest in West Africa and home to the endangered pygmy hippopotamus. The project was designed to bring SNP’s 180,400 hectares of highly threatened lowland rainforest under effective conservation management, as well as bring up to 70,000 hectares of surrounding forest under sustainable use conservation management in a manner compatible with local development.

SNP was chosen for its distinctive biological attributes within the Upper Guinea rainforest ecosystem, the escalating threats it faced, and because of its potential to spearhead the development of the Liberian Protected Areas System under an integrated biodiversity conservation and community-based natural resources management mechanism.

The GEF grant also financed the expansion of a protected areas network that will encompass five protected areas in the country’s western region, including a transfrontier Peace Park with Sierra Leone, and sustainable community livelihood activities around Liberia’s protected areas.

The foremost accomplishment of the project was that it conclusively established the basis for integrated biodiversity conservation and community development at SNP and in its fringe communities. Furthermore, the project set standards for protected area management in Liberia through its modern form of participatory and adaptive management practices, with the possibility of influencing that sector in the West African region and beyond.

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