By Naneka Hoffman
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and several service providers have signed an agreement on the protection and management of the country’s vast forest region.
FAO and the Nature Compact, the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), and the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI) signed the agreement Wednesday, 27 September 2023.
Speaking at the signing ceremony Sinkor, FAO Representative and Interim in Liberia, Bintia Stephen-Tchicaya, said the UN agency looks forward to seeing robust interventions as part of efforts to contribute to boosting Biodiversity Conservation and improving the livelihoods of Forest-Fringe or Forest-Dependent Communities and Groups in Liberia.
Madam Tchicaya called on the Nature Compact, Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), and Foundation for Community Initiatives to be serious in the implementation of the agreement.
She added that the money given to them is other countries’ taxpayers’ money and they want to see the best from it.
She noted that the agreement has a long-term goal to contribute to the reduction of climate change effects through improved sustainable livelihood, conservation, and forest restoration, among others.
Madam Tchicaya told the Service Providers that she has full confidence that as they leave the signing ceremony, they will embark on the implementation process with enthusiasm and passion and accomplish the expected objectives of this project.
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“We implore you to invoke a community-driven approach towards ensuring that the results realized, through the nine-step process of becoming authorized forest communities, will be led, managed, and owned by the stewards of these resources and the local people,” she said.
Also speaking, the Program Office for Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources at the Swedish Embassy, Jenkins Flahwor, said the agreement can bring about change at the ten communities level.
Flahwor said the agreement would provide alternative livelihoods for the people by putting them in a position to protect their respective forests.
He stated that alternative livelihoods are essential for the protection and management of the forests, adding that over the past years, there where people earned their living.
For his part, the Sustainable Development Institute’s Director, Wilfred Johnson, thanked FAO and the Swedish Embassy for the support, vowing to actualize the agreement.
The three Service Providers will work to support the establishment and management of designated Community Forests in ten communities, to go through the nine-step process.
They will strengthen forest governance systems, increase knowledge of the values of conserving biodiversity, and improve capacity to support the sustainable management of Executive Gray- Community forests in the northwest and southeast landscapes.-Edited by Winston W. Parley
