Liberia's long road to recovery from ebola

IRIN: Liberia has lifted nationwide curfews and reopened its land borders with key trading partners Sierra Leone and Guinea, but a full recovery from the economic impact of the Ebola outbreak will take time, experts say.

“The reopening of the border is going to have an impact immediately, both in terms of livelihoods and the availability of food, as well as informal trade,” said Errol Graham, the World Bank’s country economist for Liberia, who spoke to IRIN from Virginia. “But there is going to be a lot of asymmetry between the [speed of] recovery and the crisis. The crisis was an immediate thing because of fear and aversion. The recovery is going to take a little longer.”

Within hours of the reopening of the border, people and merchandise began to flow from one side to the other. Local markets, once again stocked with fresh produce, meat and home goods, buzzed with activity, for the first time in more than six months.

In the interior of Liberia, Graham said, “We are also seeing, with the abatement of the crisis, people starting to go back to work and we expect to see more of that over time. And as foreigners who were involved in concessions in the natural resource sector come back, we expect to see more improvements in the employment situation.”...

The city of Kakata in Liberia, shot by Thadk, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

After ebola, what next for West Africa’s health systems

IRIN: As rates of Ebola infection fall in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, planning has begun on how to rebuild public health systems and learn lessons from the outbreak. Nobody is declaring victory yet. But in Sierra Leone, the worst-affected country, there were 117 new confirmed cases reported in the week to 18 January, the latest statistics available, compared with 184 the previous week and 248 the week before that. Guinea halved its cases in the week to 18 January – down to 20 – and Liberia held steady at eight.

The epidemic is not over until there are zero cases over two incubation periods – the equivalent of 42 days. “It’s like being only a little bit pregnant – there’s no such thing as a little Ebola. We have to get to zero, there can be no reservoirs of Ebola,”  Margaret Harris, spokesperson of the World Health Organization (WHO), told IRIN.

But after 21,724 cases and 8,641 deaths in nine countries since the epidemic began in Guinea last year, there is some light. And health workers are already starting to look at what’s next. “Right now important meetings are going on in each country to work out what needs to be done to rebuild - in some significant respects to build health systems almost anew - and to build back better,” said Harris.

A European Union donor conference isdue at the beginning of March in Brussels. “What we want to see as a country is a resilient health system that can withstand shocks,” Liberia’s Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah told IRIN. “Our plan [to be presented in Brussels] will be finalized by the end of February. It will be well costed with tangible goals.”

Ebola tested the public health systems in the three West African countries to near destruction – most places in the world would have also struggled. But where the three failed was at the basic “nitty-gritty” level of “standard surveillance, testing and monitoring, the containment of cases, the bread and butter of public health”, said Adia Benton, a social anthropologist at Brown University in Rhode Island....

Ebola training in Guinea, shot by CDC Global CDC Global, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

Overcoming Ebola stigma takes time

IRIN: Ebola survivors in Liberia and Sierra Leone are facing mixed reactions as they return home after contracting the deadly virus. While some have been welcomed back into their communities, most are facing discrimination and stigmatization, or have even been shunned.

"I returned back to the community very happy," said Ibrahim Thomas, who lives in Freetown. "I didn't have any problems with the community or anybody. The worshippers at my mosque used to pray for me [when I was sick], so when I came back, they were so happy to see me alive and well."  Thomas, who lost his wife and two of his children to Ebola, said many of his neighbours have been sympathizing with him and doing what they can to help.

But not all survivors are so lucky. "I was devastated when I returned to my community," said 27-year-old Alhaji Bangura, who lost both parents, his wife and two children to Ebola in Sierra Leone. "I was very lucky to survive. but now some people are still afraid of me, even to come very close to me. I had so many friends before but now most of them have distanced themselves from me."  Bangura said most people will only talk to him outside their home and often refuse to give him any food or drink....

Scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus budding from the surface of a Vero cell (African green monkey kidney epithelial cell line). Credit: NIAID, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Ebola outbreak: 'Thousands of orphans shunned'

BBC News: At least 3,700 children in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone who have lost one or both parents to Ebola this year face being shunned, the UN children's organisation has said. Carers were urgently needed for these orphans, Unicef said.

A basic human reaction like comforting a sick child has been turned "into a potential death sentence", it added. The World Health Organization (WHO) says more than 3,000 people have died of Ebola in West Africa. It is the world's most deadly outbreak of the virus.

The figure on the number of Ebola orphans follows a two-week assessment mission by Unicef to the three countries worst-affected by the outbreak. An earlier version of this story said that 4,900 children had lost parents but the correct figure is 3,700. It found that children as young as three or four years old were being orphaned by the disease.

Children were discovered alone in the hospitals where their parents had died, or back in their communities where, if they were lucky, they were being fed by neighbours - but all other contact with them was being avoided....

WHO: Ebola spread outpaces control effort

Voice of America News: The head of the World Health Organization has told the presidents of West African nations stricken by Ebola that the outbreak is moving faster than efforts to control it. Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO's director general, says if the outbreak continues to worsen, the consequences could be "catastrophic" in terms of lost lives and socio-economic disruption.

Chan is in Conakry, where she met Friday with the presidents of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast. WHO and the West African leaders are finalizing a $100 million plan to fight the spread of Ebola, which has claimed nearly 730 lives.  Chan said more than 60 health workers are among the victims, and that some international relief workers have been infected.

The WHO chief said her hope is the plan emerging from the Conakry meeting will mark "a turning point" in the international response to the outbreak. Several hundred medical personnel are about to be deployed to West Africa, Chan said, and an emergency committee will meet on Wednesday to assess the international implications of the outbreak.

Referring to the scale of the ongoing Ebola outbreak as unprecedented, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told VOA the outbreak is probably worse than the figures indicate. “There could well be cases in the community that we have missed because this has been one of the biggest challenges in terms of also tracing contacts," Hartl said. "People run away.  They do not want to be treated in the health centers.  They are afraid or they do not believe that the health centers can do them any good, so they try to be treated by their families and they get sick and die there.”

Hartl says key elements of the emergency plan are to stop transmission of the Ebola virus and to prevent the spread of the disease to neighboring at-risk countries by strengthening and scaling up all control and response measures....

An electronmicrograph of the Ebola virus, image by Cynthia Goldsmith at the CDC, public domain

Sea erosion leaves thousands of Liberians homeless

Jennifer Lazuta in Voice of America News: The homes and businesses of thousands of poor people living on Liberia's coast are being swept away by rising sea levels. Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency says a project is underway to help stop the erosion, but that there is not enough funding.  

“The situation is terrible. The sea erosion has taken away our homes," said Joe Muffer, who lives in Grand Bassa County’s Buchanan City, one of several areas that have been badly affected by the erosion. "Right now, we have had to relocate my family to an abandoned school building because as you can see the sea erosion is still tough. The sea is rising every day, every moment. We are in dire need of help right now," he explained.

Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency is aware of the problems the rising sea levels are causing and has been working to control the erosion.

Stephen Y. Neufville, deputy executive director of the EPA, said, “The first phase of the project is ongoing. There have been some drawbacks, but we are responding to the impact of the sea encroaching on the city, and therefore putting boulders and other things to minimize the impact.”

Neufville said the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy has spent $6 million on various projects throughout the country to reduce the negative effects of climate change, including sea erosion....

A cell tower in Monrovia, with the eroding coasts of Monrovia Bay in the background, shot by http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/3349747776/in/set-72157614650422899/, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Liberian roads turn to rivers as government folds hands

Al-Varney Rogers and Stephen D. Kollie in AllAfrica.com: Major streets in Monrovia are impassable during this time of the year as vehicles are seen submerged in flood waters with youths, mainly men standing nearby to help pull out vehicles from flood waters for monetary reward.

"We can help you haul your car, you just give us something", one anxious youth told a taxi cab driver who had just gone into a deep hole in the Vai Town Community, on the Bushrod Island, a suburb of Monrovia. Residents in some communities are compelled to migrate due to flood overtaking their homes.

Bendu Massaquoi, a resident of Clara Town [commonly called Ma-Bendu] 52, sits on a bamboo chair in front of her house watching the heavy downpour of rain, grad
ually turning her yard into a pool. Ma-Bendu thinks the stockpile of dirt in the drainage and the construction of homes on the waterway is responsible for what is happening in her yard.

"Every rainy season our yard can be with so-so water because people are using the drainage to throw dirt there. So when the dirt piles up, it blocks the water from flowing, then the water starts to spread in our yard and it enters our house, this is the problem we are in," Ma-Bendu laments. Ma-Bendu explains that apart from the clogged drainages, people building homes on the waterway is another factor responsible for the flooding....

Broad Street in Monrovia on a dry day, shot by jeffrey at World66, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license

Liberians flee caterpillar invasion

Jennifer Lazuta in Voice of America News: Thousands of people have fled their homes in northern Liberia following an invasion of caterpillars - which have overtaken houses and schools, destroyed crops and contaminated water sources. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says these attacks are becoming more frequent in Liberia and the government needs to put in place an early warning system to stop the invasions from reaching such catastrophic levels.

Residents of at least 25 villages and towns in the forested areas of Lofa and Gbarpolu counties have been fleeing en masse since early June to escape the trail of excrement that the caterpillars leave behind. “We are afraid. You see here, the caterpillars are all over and there is nowhere to sleep. I am leaving with my children to a different community," explained Mary Tolbert who lives in Gbarpolu County.

Jeremiah Toe, a nurse in one of the affected villages, says the caterpillars pose a serious public health problem. “The situation is alarming. We have informed the Ministry of Health," he said. "As you can see, the caterpillars are taking over the homes of residents. They have polluted the creeks…Even our clinic has been attacked by the caterpillars.”

Residents and local authorities say the caterpillars have also taken over classrooms, forcing many schools in the area to shut down. Fresh water sources have become so contaminated with caterpillar feces that they are no longer safe to drink from.  Farmers say some of their crops have been destroyed.

This is not the first time caterpillars have attacked the region.  A 2009 invasion caused the government to declare a state of emergency. Smaller invasions were seen in 2011 and 2012....

Achaea catocaloides, the alleged culprit. SIR GEORGE F. HAMPSON, BART. - CATALOGUE OF THE NOCTUIDAE IN THE COLLECTION OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM

Liberia's President Sirleaf calls for partnership in dealing with access to water

AllAfrica.com via FrontPageAfrica: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has told a gathering of over six hundred participants at the 2014 Global Water Awards Ceremony in Paris, France that water is an essential source for growth and development and called for sustained partnership to ensure access to clean water globally.

The Liberian leader said governments and investors need a dialogue that will ensure private-public partnership that will ensure the availability and access to water globally, thus promoting investment and enhancing growth.

President Sirleaf said nearly one in ten people lack access to safe water and one in three are without access to basic sanitation - much of this is occurring in the developing world. The President stressed that while 2015, as the end date of the Millennium Development Goals target to reduce by half the proportion of people with access to safe drinking water and
basic sanitation has almost been met, nearly 350 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, about one-third of the continent's population will still be without safe water.

...In Liberia, the President noted where there is plentiful water, the second highest rainfall in the world at more than 200 inches per annum, reflecting an endowment of 43 percent of the rainforest biodiversity of West Africa, until the commencement of recovery in 2003, the majority of Liberian children did not know pipe borne water for drinking, hygiene or sanitation....

The Mesurado River in Liberia, shot by David Stanley, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Curbing west Africa’s ebola outbreak

IRIN: As health authorities and aid groups work to contain the spread of Ebola in Guinea which has killed 59 people and infected scores of others since January, suspected cases have emerged in neighbouring Liberia, prompting calls for a regional response.

Haemorrhagic fever symptoms first appeared in Guinea’s southern forested region. Eighty-six people have so far been infected. Authorities are urging restriction of movement and observance of hygiene to prevent further infections.

The cases have mainly been reported in the four southern districts of Guéckédou, Macenta, Nzérékoré and Kissidougou near the border with Sierra Leone and Liberia. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has dispatched some 33 tons of medicines and equipment to Guinea to help curtail the epidemic which is infecting 1-3 people a day.

“It’s happening along the border, so what we’ve been doing now is to start a collaboration between these neighbouring countries,” said Francis Kasolo, director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Disease Prevention and Control Unit in Africa. “Conferences are being held between these three countries to ensure that whenever there is a suspected case it can be identified quickly and appropriate response can be taken.”

In Guinea’s Guéckédou area, district health chief Moussa Kolié said: “We have begun training nurses to help contain as much as possible the spread of new cases.” Funeral gatherings and unnecessary hospital visits were being discouraged, he said...

Ebola virions, from harting the Path of the Deadly Ebola Virus in Central Africa. PLoS Biol 3/11/2005: e403 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030403, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license

Network of climate change practitioners launched in Zwedru, Liberia

Chris T. Nyenapee in AllAfrica.com via Heritage (Monrovia): The Liberia Network of Climate Change Practitioners Grand Gedeh branch has launched its activities in Zwedru, with Superintendent Peter Solo assuring local farmers of government's fullest cooperation in finding a solution to climate change.

He described the impact of climate change as a negative phenomenon that requires the urgent attention of people from diverse backgrounds for a positive way out to sustainability and survival.

Supt. Solo emphasized that the country cannot continue to live on imported food, saying Liberians must grow what they eat.

The program held under the auspices of Climate Change Adoption Agriculture Project, CCAAP/ PMU/MOA at the County Health Team Guest House in Zwedru, was attended by agriculture technicians, professionals and practitioners....

Flood, poor sanitation result in health hazard around Monrovia

AllAfrica.com via New Republic (Liberia): One of the contaminated open wells, as the result of heavy downpours and Stockpile of dirt now causing mosquitoes in one of the communities hit by flood. The issue of poor sanitation in and around Monrovia, Liberia's Capital is going from bad to worst in the wake of on-going rainy season, resulting to heavy rain fall the past days.

The situation in Monrovia and its environs has increased sanitation problem, especially in communities affected by flooding. Affected areas include the Samuel Kanyon Doe Community, Clara Town, Topoe Village Community on the Somalia Drive and some parts of Jamaica Road, among other.

The heavy downpour of rain over the last few days socked huge piles of garbage resulting to unfavorable smells in most communities over taken by dirt, and creating mosquitoes as well. In some cases, the heavy downpours washed away the dirt and feces (caused from open defecation) in to wells and homes.

Residents in these communities informed the WASH Reporters & Editors Network of Liberia that heavy down pours over the last few days did not only increase the problem of poor sanitation, but also left their personally belongings destroyed...

Downtown Monrovia, shot by Erik (HASH) Hershman, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Illegal logging poses greater threat to liberia's forest

AllAfrica.com via Heritage (Monrovia): A fresh report released by the environmental watchdog Global Witness indicates that illegal logging in Liberia is posing greater threat to the country's forest.

The Global Witness' report, which states that illegal logging is robbing several people in Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, substantiates the group's earlier report stating that last year in Liberia, "private use permits" were issued on a massive scale, allowing logging companies to claim more than 40 percent of the country's forests during a two-year period.

However, Global Witness' team leader for forest sector transparency, David Young, says, although the proportional scale of the problem was biggest in Liberia, the permits also pose a grave threat to Ghana, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Said Young: "The area involved proportionately in Liberia is much greater than in the other countries, so it was a much greater threat to Liberia's forests. But the systemic nature of them in the other countries, if not controlled, could lead to similar destruction."

Howbeit, the Global Witness' team leader for forest sector transparency added: "The good news in Liberia is that the president issued an executive decree in early 2013 to completely close down the private use permits, and she has promised criminal investigations and prosecutions where necessary. But that was back in January. We're now in May and we haven't seen much progress in that investigation and those prosecutions."...

A logging road in Liberia, shot by John Atherton, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

Africa’s logging permit crisis puts EU at risk of laundering illegal timber imports

Global Witness: Systematic abuse of small, poorly regulated logging permits in Africa by companies, forest officials and politicians is undermining efforts to fight deforestation and keep illegal timber out of the EU, says a new report by Global Witness.

The new report, Logging in the shadows, identifies a largely hidden pattern of abuse across Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana and Liberia, in which permits designed to promote small businesses and meet local needs are being allocated in their hundreds to industrial logging companies. These “shadow permits” open the door to highly lucrative, large-scale logging operations which bypass oversight by the authorities.

"This is a very worrying trend – logging companies are systematically colluding with corrupt officials to get around laws designed to stop them decimating forests and abusing those that live in them. This is massively undermining international efforts to regulate the international timber trade, notably the EU’s Voluntary Partnership Agreements and Timber Regulation,” said Alexandra Pardal, Europe Campaigner at Global Witness.

12.4 billion Euros worth of timber considered to pose a high risk of illegality entered the EU in 2011... In March 2013 the EU Timber Regulation prohibited the import of illegal timber, but in the past two months Global Witness and Greenpeace have uncovered suspicious log shipments in EU ports from two of the countries featured in Logging in the shadows...

A logging truck in Cameroon, in a collision with a bush taxi, shot by Amcaja, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Indonesia's fisheries most 'vulnerable to collapse'

Clara Rondonuwu in SciDev.net: Indonesia and Liberia's coral reef fisheries are most vulnerable to collapse, says a study that has ranked the vulnerability of coastal nations based on indicators for their coral reef management, fisheries and food security.

The study, published in this month's Environmental Science and Policy, looked at 27 countries that depend significantly on coral reef fisheries for food and ranked them according to their exposure and sensitivity to the effects of climate change and man-made disturbances, as well on their capacity to adapt to changes.

Coral reefs are globally valued for their high biodiversity. For millions of people, they are a productive source of food. An average Indonesian gets almost 60 per cent of its animal protein from fish, while in Pacific island countries this figure is between 50 to 90 per cent. However, coral reef fisheries are expected to decline with climate change and other human caused disturbances.

In the new study, a higher sensitivity indicates that a country is highly dependent on coral reef fisheries for human protein sources, and is already close to or below the minimum protein consumption level, while capacity to adapt is the potential to respond to changes in the contribution of reef fisheries to the food system.

They found that Indonesia is the most vulnerable because of the combined effects of man-made disturbance and very high sensitivity. Liberia, the second most vulnerable, has very high sensitivity to coral reef fisheries decline and the lowest level of adaptive capacity. Kenya, Ivory Coast and the Philippines complete the top five most vulnerable....

Hundreds of fisherman boats on the beach at Pangandaran, Indonesia, shot by Danumurthi Mahendra, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Liberian farmers attribute climate change to government's concession policies

Alloycious David in AllAfrica.com via the News (Monrovia): Local farmers across the country are blaming government's policies that allocated large-scale industrial mining, logging and agriculture concessions for climate change in the country. Participants at a recent workshop organized by Green Advocates with funding from the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) in Rivercess County southeast of Liberia have blamed current changes in their climatic conditions as well as the current rate of deforestation and forest degradation on an elitist-led massive land grabbing by foreign concessionaires.

The farmers said that the current rate of deforestation and forest degradation has never been witnessed before in Liberia since the granting of the US$1million concession to the Firestone Agriculture Plantation in 1926.

The workshop was intended to deliberate on how to address the issues of deforestation and forest degradation as well as to design a strategy to engage government and other stakeholders on the government climate change policy formulation process as well as its readiness plan for Reduce Emission from Deforestation and Degradation ( REDD).

The group of farmers participating in the forum said: "do not blame poor rural farmers for climate change." According to the farmer and other participants, recent agricultural, forest and mining concessions have been appropriated approximately 2 million acres of community land subject to customary law. "Just in the last six months alone approximately 2 million hectares of forest land have been awarded under Private Use Permits alone, they stated.

The participants pointed to a recent study by the Liberian Land Commission, which estimated that about 75% of the total Liberian Land areas have either been awarded under concessions or is currently in the pipelines to be awarded under concessions, This means that poor Liberians may only have to fight over the remaining 25%.

"These situations could foster resentment and conflict among indigenous and rural populations, and ultimately undermine not only the efficacy of a Liberian REDD program and the sustainable forest program more generally but the peace and stability of the Country," they added....

USAID photo of a tropical forest in Liberia

Illegal logging endangers Liberia's forests

Travis Lupick in Al Jazeera.com: Liberia's forestry department has been secretly doling out illegal logging permits to large corporations that could result in more than 40 per cent of its pristine forest being chopped down, with little benefit to local communities, a new report by environmental groups alleges.

In the past two years, control over a quarter of all of Liberia's land has been handed over to private corporations to log, says the report released on Tuesday after a three-month investigation. "An explosion in the use of secretive and often illegal logging permits" has occurred, it says.

Logging contracts - covering both private and public land - now cover more than 36,000 square kilometres of Liberia's landmass, an area larger than the US state of Maryland.

The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) began issuing new licenses called "private use permits" in 2010 that contain no sustainability requirements. The contracts give companies free rein to clear much of Liberia's forests - some of Africa's richest - including almost half of its primary intact forests, according to Jonathan Gant, policy adviser for Global Witness, which drafted the report.

Some communities involved in the deals with the corporations say they were coerced and swindled, alleging their signatures were forged on land titles.

Minister of Information Lewis Brown described the situation as "mindboggling", adding President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf appointed a panel on August 31 to investigate. He confirmed criminal investigations could follow, and if permits are found to be unlawful, those contracts will be terminated....

Monrovia seen from space

Liberia's hasty forest sell-off risks more conflict

Tamasin Ford in the globaldevelopment blog in the Guardian (UK): More than half of Liberia's forests have been granted to logging companies according to figures released to the Guardian from Global Witness – and all of the contracts have been issued during Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's government. "What we've seen over at least the past 18 months is an explosion of logging concessions," said Jonathan Gant, policy adviser at Global Witness.

More than 40% of the Upper Guinea rainforest is in Liberia. Rich, dense forest packed with rare and endangered species sprawls for hundreds of miles over the small coastal country. Sapo National Park, one of three protected areas in Liberia, contains more than 40 endangered species including the pygmy hippo, forest elephant, golden cat and western chimpanzee.

After 14 years of civil war, during which the country was stripped of roads, electricity, hospitals and schools, the revenue from logging concessions is crucial for rebuilding the country. But Global Witness has found evidence that huge swaths of land are being relinquished to logging companies without adherence to local regulations or laws. Most of this land is virgin rainforest.

Conflict timber became the main source of funding for the former president, Charles Taylor, during the war, after the UN imposed sanctions on importing Liberian diamonds in 2001. Despite this, Liberia still has an abundance of forest. Global Witness calculates that, since 2008, 2.4m hectares (5.9m acres) of the country's 4.4m hectares of forest have been granted to logging companies – around 55%.

Logging exports resumed in 2010, after a UN timber ban was lifted in 2006, and are expected to increase as dredging companies deepen the ports in Monrovia and Greenville in the south-east....

A tropical forest in Liberia, 2007, USAID photo

Liberians face rising flood threat

Rob Young in the BBC World Service: Liberia on Africa's west coast is in desperate need of help as it suffers from the effects of climate change. The country, which has been devastated by years of civil war, is now facing a second major threat - the ocean.

The United Nations Development Programme say the changing climate means the sea level is rising and the rainy season is getting longer. This has led to a rapidly eroding coastline and more instances of flooding.

…"We have to send out an SOS call to the international community that Liberia is in dire need of their support," says Carlton Miller, a senior government minister. "We are facing an imminent threat, this is not something we can do on our own."

…The majority of Liberia's population live in coastal cities and what is left of its infrastructure is also near the ocean. "Some areas are so low compared to sea level that a rising tide will see some inundation of low-lying areas," says David Wiles, assistant professor of geography at the University of Liberia.

…The exact rate of coastal erosion is unclear because historical records were destroyed during the civil war. But the government estimates that in one coastal city, Buchanan, the sea has moved 250 metres in almost 40 years….

Liberian forests surrendered despite pledges and warnings

Festus Poquie in AllAfrica.com via the New Democrat (Monrovia, Liberia): International partners, worried about the climatic effects of depleting one of Africa's last remaining tracks of rain forest, pledged to pay millions to the Government to reserve and preserve its forests. They campaigned to stop the Legislature from passing 4 forests bills they have determined are not in the country's interests. But behind closed doors, the Legislators did their thing, with the House Speaker, Alex Tyler, describing internationals concerns as "a joke" because, he added, jobs are needed.

This means that Legislators have surrendered the country's forest to various foreign companies, ignoring concerns and pleads from environmental groups to preserve one of Africa's valuable rain forests in order to prevent carbon emission.

The forestry contracts awarded to various foreign and local companies have been highly controversial, with Global Witness, the international environmental rights campaigners, citing illegality in the bidding process and hinting legislators that a notorious Malaysian logging company (Samling) is involved with the contracts.

Global Witness, in a letter addressed to legislators Thursday, revealed that the country's international partners have offered financial compensation to encourage it not to log its forest because of its "value in mitigating global climate change". "Liberia can preserve its forest and receive funding equivalent to potential logging revenues that the government could use to boost Liberia's economy, invest in infrastructure, and in so doing to create jobs….

Rainforest at edge of logging road near Konimbo, Liberia (West Africa), shot by John Atherton, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License