Liberia : Data

Transparency norms

In addition to the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI) Act, the National Forestry Reform Law (NFRL 2006) and the Freedom of Information Act will greatly contribute to transparency in the allocation of concession contracts, revenue collection and redistribution, and expenditure. This will however depend on the level of implementation. Read more...

Legal standing

The Associations Law of Liberia gives Not-For-Profit Corporations Legal standing. The National Forestry Reform Law, FDA Regulations and the Community Rights Law specifically acknowledge and address communities and civil society organizations as stakeholders and right holders. This is in addition to their rights as citizens and members of the public with rights to information related to forestry. Read more...

Forest legal framework

All the laws and regulations related to forestry are publicly available. Hardcopies can be acquired from the FDA and electronic copies can be downloaded from the FDA website. Other laws with implications for forest including the LEITI Act and PPCC Act are also online.
The FDA is yet to establish an information centre or a system for facilitating public access to hard copies of these documents. Read more...

Transparent access to decision-making

Regulation 101-07 on Public Participation provides for public involvement in forest-related policy and rule-making processes. The law requires FDA to establish a Forest Management Stakeholder List of individuals, groups and institutions interested in forest management. This list is yet to be published by the FDA.
The implementation regulations for the Community Forest Rights Law 2009 with Respect to Forest Lands are being developed. This will empower communities to play a more central role in decision making about community forests. Read more...

Tenure and land use

There remains considerable confusion over ownership of forest land; a private versus public forest land debate continues. A significant percentage of forest land in Liberia is under titles and could be clearly identified. But the situation with forest land held under customary arrangement remains unclear. Read more...

Allocation of permits / user rights

The forestry law and regulations, and the Public Procurement and Concession Act both require transparent processes for allocating forest use permits. All the major permits require competitive bidding and the selected areas are subject to a public consultation prior to confirmation.
No new large logging concessions have been issued in 2010. Read more...

Logging operations

All logging contracts and information on logging volumes are available to the public. While logging volumes are available to the public it is upon request that one can acquire such information. The FDA website does not have this information. The SGS, however, emails weekly updates to those that are on its email list. If FDA would compile a stakeholders’ list according to the NFRL, then the SGS could be required to ensure all stakeholders receive these weekly updates of taxes and fees payment including logging volume. Read more...

Extraction of other forest products

A Regulation on the Commercialization and Sustainable Extraction of Non Timber Forest Products (NTFP) was promulgated in late 2009. The regulation aims to “Assure sustainable development and conservation of the forest and its genetic resources for the present and the future generation." Read more...

Environmental services

The forestry and environmental laws do not specifically address permits related to environmental services. In fact, the terminology ‘environmental services’ is not used anywhere in both laws.
In addition to the absence of legislative framework on environmental services, the FDA has not issued any environmental service permits in forest exploitation in Liberia. Attempts at carbon storage deals with potential investors are therefore taking place in a policy vacuum. Read more...

Cultural services

While forest related information are public documents, with few related exceptions, the law and regulations do not yet specifically foresee permits for cultural services.
There is therefore no specific permit system or regulations regarding ‘cultural services’, but there is a need for one as there are few examples of culturally significant sites that must be protected within a legal framework. Read more...

Extra-sectoral activities affecting forests

The Government of Liberia has issued several large-scale mining and monoculture agricultural concessions. Some of these concessions are situated in or close proximity to areas considered significant for biodiversity conservation. The large-scale agricultural concessions will in particular intensify conversion of natural forests and increase the rate of deforestation.
Unless otherwise granted permission for sole-source contracting, all major public contracts are allocated through opened and competitive processes in line with the PPC Act. These apply to mining and agricultural concessions as well. Read more...

Fiscal regime: tax collection and redistribution

The National Forestry Reform Law provides for the redistribution of Land Rental Fees. Affected Communities are entitled to 30% of the total Land Rental Fees collected from logging companies. Communities are also entitled to fees imposed on each cubic meter of log harvested in their area. Additionally, under the CRL communities will receive 55% revenue from logging concessions on community forest land up to 50,000 hectares. Read more...

Forest law enforcement

The Authority may, by Regulation, establish procedures to compensate or reward third parties that provide information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Persons violating this Law or the accompanying Regulations. Read more...

'Anti-transparency' norms

There are provisions in the NFRL that allows the FDA to redact certain information based on requests from the provider (ex. logging companies) on confidentiality grounds. To date, there is no case of a logging company evoking this provision. The Senate Rules deny public access to information for sessions conducted behind closed doors. Minutes of these sessions are classified. Some logging concessions have been ratified behind closed doors. Read more...

Publications

The FDA has secured funding from the World Bank to increase public access to forest sector information. The FDA management has assured to the public that the project will build up FDA staff capacity to increase public access to forest sector information. Read more...

2010

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