Rainforests have long played a central role in Liberia. Home to hundreds of thousands of people, they’re a source of sustenance, a site for cultural practice and habitat for forest elephants, western chimpanzees, and pygmy hippos. Massive rubber plantations carved out of them dominated the country’s economy for decades, and during the country’s civil war they provided timber that funded rebel groups.

After the guns fell silent, Liberia overhauled its forestry laws to give communities a bigger role, with foreign donors pledging vast sums to support the reforms. Today, some of those donors are pulling back on their commitments, and new threats to Liberia’s forests are emerging.

Nobody knows the importance of Liberia’s forests — or the challenges of protecting them — better than Silas Siakor. A prominent voice pushing for community rights in forest management, he was instrumental in designing the postwar legal reforms as well as the exposure of logging corruption scandals.

In 2006, Siakor was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for his work investigating illegal logging under former President Charles Taylor. With the prize money, he set up an environmental watchdog group, the Sustainable Development Institute.

Now, he’s helping to run an innovative pilot project in Liberia’s southeast Sinoe county, where 28 communities are set to begin receiving direct “area-based payments” from the Irish government in exchange for conserving their forests.

“Two things came to mind when I first started to think about this approach,” he told Mongabay. “How do we incentivize forest owners to keep their forest standing? And how do we do so in a way that’s empowering?”

Mongabay’s Ashoka Mukpo spoke to Siakor about the project and what it could mean for forest protection globally.

[Disclosure: From 2012-14 Mukpo worked with Siakor as a field investigator at the Sustainable Development Institute.]

Mongabay: Can you tell me a little bit about the region in Liberia where this is being implemented and what the status of the forest there is?

Silas Siakor: One of the communities we are piloting is called Wedjah. Part of Wedjah’s customary land falls inside the Sapo National Park boundaries. So, the remaining forest outside of the park’s boundaries that still falls on community land is what they’ve brought into the scheme.

That area is so strategic in terms of expanding the potential status of Sapo and creating a community effort to protect that area from encroachment.

Similar, there’s another district that sits between Sapo and the proposed Grand Kru-River Gee [protected] area. So, it’s a corridor linking two very important biodiversity areas and for wildlife.

These are areas on community land that aren’t yet under any kind of logging contract or agriculture contract. They are very suitably situated and could be better managed and protected in order to help link Sapo with the other proposed area.

Mongabay: And what will communities need to do in order for the funds to keep flowing in for the next two years?

Silas Siakor: There are four basic things, which are all key drivers of deforestation.

One is that they don’t contract with a logging company or chainsaw milling guys — which we call pit sawing. They don’t do that, but they can still harvest timber for their own local community development projects, like building a school.

They will not be able to do shifting agriculture in the designated forest area. Normally, community people don’t farm in high-density forest areas because it’s a lot of labor, but with the increasing use of chainsaws by people who want to access timber in those areas, we have to keep people from breaking them up. So that’s one of the restrictions they have to abide by: not creating new farms in those forest areas.

They [also] can’t do mining in those forests, which is a major driver of deforestation.

And finally: No building new settlements. So based on the land-use plans that they’ve done already, there will be very clear criteria for where a new village can be, whereas in the past maybe an individual would just relocate their family into a high-density forest area. They open up a little place, start a house, and then before you realize it, in 5-10 years it grows gradually until it becomes a full settlement.

So those are the four drivers of deforestation we’re trying to tackle, and what the communities have to commit to curbing so the forest can still be there.

Mongabay: There’s been talk about REDD+ and carbon markets becoming a source of funds to protect the forest in Liberia for decades, but it’s never really gotten off the ground. What is it about this project that’s different?

Silas Siakor: The concept of REDD+ started from very simplistic thinking, which was a good thing, not a bad thing! But it went from being simple and reasonable to a very complicated and convoluted arrangement that added layer upon layer upon layer. It has just become so complicated to be able to get through all the hoops to qualify for results payments.

There’s also a second element, where you have to wait for results before you get paid. And I think a country like Liberia that’s struggling economically, that really faces challenging times, we don’t have the capacity to be able to wait and build results before we can get any kind of payment.

So, we are taking a roundabout way to go around this and say, well, your first payment could be classified as a preparatory grant, and then you use that to begin to demonstrate results.

So, all the subsequent payments will be based on compliance with the very basic commitments the community makes, in terms of helping to curb deforestation. Once you can start to show results at the end of the year, you’re entitled to that payment.

But the first year’s payment, which is up-front, I think makes a very big difference in that it demonstrates to a community that this is something that has economic potential and could deliver a development outcome for them.

Mongabay: This is what you refer to in the project as ‘area-based payments,’ correct?

Silas Siakor: Yes. So, it’s based on the hectares of forest that’s protected under the scheme. And we are kind of doing this as a start. Gradually, we begin to build relationships with these communities, and with other conservation organizations, to try to understand the biodiversity potential of those areas.

It’s not only for the trees that are left standing; these areas may also be very high-biodiversity significance, not only for Liberia but globally. So, we don’t intend to just stop with the payments for keeping the trees standing but to work with the communities to better understand the forest they have and the quality and ecological benefits that are there.

Mongabay: How did you choose which communities to start this project with, and what was it like to get them to agree to participate in it?

Silas Siakor: These are communities that we’ve been working with over the last couple of years. We supported them to go through the land rights registration process, and to do some participatory land use planning in those areas as well. So, we have a long history of working with them.

The conversation with them over the years has been, how do we create economic opportunities in this region? They’re blessed with so much biodiversity and forest, but that’s also become a hindrance to their own development because everyone is very concerned about the forest and significant biodiversity in those areas.

Two years ago, when we first floated the idea to them, it was a fairly easy concept for them to grasp. Some people felt it was too good to be true until they actually signed a commitment that set up the bank account and funds started to flow in. Now that it’s happening, it’s such a big deal to them.

It has been quite an elaborate process of consultation and decision-making at their level. So, it has been rather inclusive.

Mongabay: You said earlier that the quality of the biodiversity in their forests is in some ways a hindrance to their economic development. That seems important because in nearby areas of Liberia, a lot of communities are now contracting their forests out to cocoa production. What is it about this model that you think could be more appealing to people in Wedjiah or elsewhere than commercial farming or logging?

Silas Siakor: In one of the community consultations, we were getting quite a bit of questioning. How does this work? Why are you doing this? Why should donors even fund it? It just didn’t make sense to them that they could keep the forest intact and would get rewarded [annually].

I was quite amazed by one elderly lady who said, ‘Well, listen, if we give the trees out to the logging companies, they cut it once and pay us once. If we keep the trees there, [then] for as long as they are there, we get paid for that. Why is this such a difficult thing to understand?’

So, she was really able to simplify it and just say, if we keep the trees there, we continue to get paid; our children will be able to see those trees, and we get some economic benefits from them. So, for them, it’s really about generating income by keeping the forest standing over a long period of time instead of destroying it and getting a benefit once.

Mongabay: Another thing I find interesting about this is how it fits with the Paris Agreement’s Article 6 framework. Most of what you hear about refers to carbon markets, but this is more under the ‘non-market approach,’ right?

Silas Siakor: Especially in sub-Saharan Africa, countries are mostly very poor and underdeveloped. Therefore, you need to accompany whatever financial support you provide with some technical capacity development and knowledge transfer, a whole range of complementary interventions. That is very similar to what we are doing.

For example, we do not just make these payments to the communities. We also offer them our service to help them to think through how they make proper decisions and make sure that there is inclusion in their own decision-making. For example, that all the villages that are to be impacted are aware that meetings are happening so they can participate and be part of the process.

So, there’s a whole basket of complementary support that we provide, which is really important. Because unless you help them be more accountable, so everyone sees the benefit of the income they receive, this is not going to work.

Mongabay: The four core commitments the communities are making — preventing logging, mining, shifting agriculture and new settlements — are all priorities you might traditionally associate with conservation. But conservation hasn’t always been popular in communities like this. Why is that?

Silas Siakor: One of the criticisms I hear offered in communities is that ‘conservation doesn’t bring development.’ But what they’re really saying is that oftentimes, the projects that conservation organizations bring in prioritize biodiversity over human interests.

So, for example, they’ll do livelihood projects like beekeeping or a bit of agriculture, a farm here or there. And in the eye of the communities, those things don’t really translate to the type of development interventions they see as beneficial.

So, it’s a bit that projects are badly conceived, a bit of projects being badly managed and a bit of not prioritizing the development priorities of the communities themselves, but rather imposing development practices based on what the conservation organization thinks they want.

The difference with what we are trying to do is we put the resources in their hands, and they make the decisions about their priorities. I think for them that’s a really big difference.

We’re hoping that through working with them and supporting them in their decision-making processes, and making sure that they’re managed in an inclusive and transparent manner, that they will end up with projects that are appreciated by the majority of the population in the different areas.

Mongabay: Thanks so much, Silas. We look forward to seeing how it goes.

Silas Siakor: Thank you so much.

Banner image: Silas Siakor in Wedjah District, Sinoe County, Liberia. Image courtesy of Silas Siakor.

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