Liberia : Indicators

The forestry law requires that concession holders should not be issued a harvesting certificate until the holder has an approved forest management plan. In practice, these plans have typically not been published on the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) website or made available to the public. However, following the unofficial opening of the Info Shop, it was found during a visit there in July 2012 that plans for two of the existing seven Forest Management Contracts (Industrial Consultant Capital; FMC K and Geblo Logging; FMC I) are available and copies can be obtained for $10 each. This shows an improvement over previous years. Nonetheless, local communities affected by the planned forestry operations do not have access to these management plans, including the Annual Operational Plan for a FMC and the Harvesting Plan for a Timber Sales Contract. Consequently, communities do not have information on the periods, locations and volumes of the operations in the concession. With regard to Private Use Permits, the FDA indicated in 2011 that these permits should have Annual Operational Plans but it did not respond to requests by affected communities for such plans.