Liberia’s Private Use Permits and the Destruction of Community-Owned Rainforest
Liberia is the most heavily forested country in West Africa and contains the last large areas of relatively intact rainforest in the region. Most of Liberia’s rural communities are also dependent on the forest for food, energy and other basic needs. During the country’s long conflict, timber exports were used to finance arms sales and logging companies committed human rights abuses against those living in the forests. In the nine years since the war, the Liberian Government and its international partners have spent considerable time and money reforming the sector –drafting new laws and negotiating a timber trade agreement with the European Union. However, in the span of only two years, companies have used a legal loophole to secretively parcel out dozens of logging contracts covering a quarter of the country’s land area – roughly 26,000 km2 – once again threatening Liberia’s forests and the people who depend upon them.
These new licenses – termed Private Use Permits – contain no sustainability requirements and therefore would essentially allow companies to clear 40 percent of Liberia’s forests, including almost half of Liberia’s primary intact forests. Private Use Permits provide much less revenue to the Government than other types of logging licenses.
Frequently allocated on land owned collectively by the local communities, the Permits provide little benefit to these communities and violate Liberia’s new laws designed to ensure that communities can control their forests. Investigations by Global Witness, Save My Future Foundation and Sustainable Development Institute have also
uncovered evidence of Permits awarded in violation of the country’s Community Rights Law, suspected forged documents and systematic neglect for due process in the allocation of Private Use Permits.
While some 66 Private Use Permits have been awarded to a range of companies, by far the largest beneficiary is Atlantic Resources. Atlantic is registered in Liberia but is linked to logging giant Samling, a Malaysian company with a history of illegal logging in both its home country and around the world.
In recent weeks as top Liberian Government officials and international partners begin to grasp the extent of the threat,
Private Use Permits have become a much debated topic. In August, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf reconfirmed a moratorium on Private Use Permit operations and an investigation into what has gone wrong. These promising commitments from the President must result in enforcement and action, with an independent investigation
and the prosecution of those responsible for perpetuating any fraud uncovered as a result.
A brief history of Liberian logging
From 1989 to 2003 Liberia experienced a series of civil wars, resulting in the deaths of 250,000 people and the
displacement of 1.3 million. During a break in the conflict, in 1997 the country elected warlord Charles Taylor as
President. During his regime, Taylor used Liberia’s forests as a personal bank account and a means of financing his
war efforts. Some of the leading logging companies made significant off-budget payments to Taylor and were actively
involved in illegal arms imports. At its height, Liberia’s timber industry was responsible for widespread abuses of
forest inhabitants and destructive logging in concessions covering nearly half of the country. In 2003, the United
Nations Security Council recognized the role that logging played in the country’s ongoing conflicts and imposed
sanctions, banning imports of Liberian timber by member states.
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In the nine years since the end of Liberia’s war, the Government, with support from Liberian civil society and key
international partners – particularly the U.S. and the World Bank – embarked on a major effort to reform the forest
sector. These reforms were designed to be comprehensive: Liberia’s war-time logging contracts were cancelled and
new laws were passed. Liberia’s partners have invested heavily in these reforms, including:
• A reported US$ 30 million from the United States to support communities in managing their forest resources.
• A trade agreement with the European Union – the Voluntary Partnership Agreement – requiring that only
“legal” timber be cut Liberia, and setting standards for what “legal” should mean.
Following the lifting of U.N. timber sanctions in 2006, the Government began issuing new logging licenses. Despite all
the reform efforts, this process was characterized by significant violations of the country’s laws and regulations. The
resulting seven large Forest Management Contracts and ten small Timber Sale Contracts together cover nine percent
of the country. Although the first of these concessions began exporting timber in 2010, it is generally agreed that the
companies holding the contracts have failed to deliver the promised benefits to the Liberian people. Many of
companies awarded contracts owe significant back taxes, and while the Government had estimated that between
2008 and 2011 it would receive some US$ 107 million from logging, by July 2012 the country had received only US$
24 million.
The explosion of Private Use Permits
Even as companies failed to meet their obligations under existing contracts, a new avenue for gaining logging rights
emerged and has been exploited on a massive scale: Private Use Permits. Private Use Permits differ from Forest
Management Contracts and Timber Sale Contracts in that they are not allocated by the Government on public land.
Instead, the Permits involve deeded private land, allowing land owners to enter into contracts directly with logging
companies.
Liberia’s forest law allows for such contracts, but unlike for other types of licenses the law is accompanied by few
regulations to guide the use of Private Use Permits. As a result, these Permits have no size limit and are
accompanied by few restrictions on how logging operations are carried out. Also, while Liberia’s other large logging
licenses have requirements meant to improve the sustainability of logging operations, Private Use Permits can be
used to entirely clear large areas of forest. Evidence revealed by our investigations show that at least one company –
Atlantic Resources, linked to Malaysian logging giant Samling – has the intention of clearing forest areas after logging
them.
Other disadvantages of Private Use Permits include a lack of competitive bidding, lower tax contributions to the Government than under either a Forest Management Contract or a Timber Sale Contract and no minimum level of revenue to be paid to land owners.
Since 2010 there has been a huge increase in the number of Private Use Permits issued. Although Government reports vary, recent information suggests that there are now some 66 Private Use Permits covering 26,000 km2 of Liberia’s territory – almost a quarter of the entire country. By our estimates these Permits, which as stated above are subject to virtually no regulations to promote sustainability of logging operations, now cover over 40 percent of Liberia’s forests, including 46 percent of the country’s intact rainforest. Such rapid and widespread allocation is itself a major concern, but that Liberia has signed away its natural heritage for such paltry returns is particularly alarming. For a map showing the locations of the 59 Permits for which we have location information, see Annex I.
Obtaining information on Private Use Permits has proven difficult, and it was not until November 2011 that the Liberian Government provided some basic information on their locations and sizes. Since then a series of events has brought further attention to this issue:
• Responding to protests from Liberian civil society members and a Government insider, in February 2012 the Board of Directors of the Government’s Forestry Development Authority ordered a moratorium on operations of all Private Use Permits save the four operating at that time and on the issuance of further Private Use Permits.
• By June 2012 it was apparent that the moratorium on operations was being ignored and additional companies holding Permits had begun operating. Lincoln
• On August 3rd, the authors of this memo wrote to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf presenting evidence of fraud and other suspicious activities during the award of Permits.
• On August 6th President Johnson Sirleaf renewed the February moratorium.
• Reacting to the President’s reconfirmation of the moratorium on logging operations, on August 8th the Liberian Timber Association – a trade group – filed a protest with the Liberian Senate. On August 23rd, the Senate stated that the moratorium should be lifted, although the legal weight of this statement is unclear. The Timber Association has also filed a complaint with the Supreme Court.
• On August 20th President Johnson Sirleaf announced that she would commission an investigation to examine the issue.
Fraud and community exclusion
Private Use Permits have become such a widespread problem in large part because many appear to be based upon forged documents and have been awarded without the informed consent of the people living in concession areas.
Suspicious and forged documents
As an agreement between a land owner and a company, Private Use Permits require a holder show that the attendant land is owned – that it is deeded. Our investigations show that many of the deeds that underpin Private Use Permits are of either suspicious provenance or may be forged:
• 28 of the 30 deeds seen by Global Witness, SAMFU and SDI are held in the collective name of the people of a district or clan. Based on interviews with residents in ten areas for which Private Use Permit have been issued, we found that community members and local leaders in six cases stated they did not believe deeds to their land existed, raising serious questions about whether the deeds underlying these Permits are valid.
When presented with a letter written in his name submitting his people’s deed to the Government, a Paramount Chief from the Dugbeh River Private Use Permit area in Sinoe County told us that the letter was a forged.
• In Liberia, most deeds must be signed by the President. In one Private Use Permit (Doedian District, Rivercess County), the attendant deed is dated 1924 but signed by President Edwin Barclay, who did not become Liberia’s President until 1930.
• To date, we have been able to obtain only 30 deeds for the reported 66 Private Use Permits, and these copies are very poor, leaving open the possibility that many additional deeds have been forged.
Community exclusion
Many Private Use Permits have been awarded in contravention of Liberian law because they have been issued on land owned by communities, frequently without meaningful participation of those residents. As discussed above, the vast majority of Permits for which information is available are underpinned by deeds that are held collectively by the forest’s residents. However, under Liberian law such collective-deeds are actually controlled by the country’s 2009
Community Rights Law which dictates that collective titles must be covered as “community forests” and not Private Use Permits. As such, almost all of the Private Use Permits for which deed information is available cannot legally be awarded as Private Use Permits.
This requirement exists in order to protect Liberia’s rural populations – to ensure that when deciding what to do with collectively-owned forests they set up governance structures and operational plans to manage them in a participatory and accountable way. The way Private Use Permits were issued underlines why such safeguards are essential. Our investigations have shown that people living in Permit areas did not make informed decisions when handing their forests to logging companies. In five of the six Private Use Permit communities where residents were aware of the process by which documents were signed, communities reported that meetings were short – no longer than one day –and at no meetings were any documents altered based upon suggestions by community attendees. In the sixth Private Use Permit area visited, interviewed residents were unaware of the process by which decisions had been made.
One of the most striking examples of how little negotiating capacity affected communities had in the award of Private Use Permits is the paltry sums they agreed to accept as compensation for allowing their forests to be logged. Prices for Liberian tropical hardwoods can reach US$ 200 per cubic meter. Yet in all the Permits areas visited, communities members involved in “negotiations” agreed to receive either US$ 1.50 or US$ 3.00 per cubic meter. In violating Liberia’s Community Rights Law, it is clear that Private Use Permits risk widespread exploitation of the people who own the forest.
The roles of Atlantic Resources and Government officials
Atlantic Resources, Alpha Logging and Malaysian logging giant Samling
Our investigation has identified 16 different companies holding Private Use Permits. Principal among these is Atlantic Resources, a company linked to Malaysian logging giant Samling. Atlantic holds a total of 8,400 km2 in Private Use Permits, or almost eight percent of the entire country. Also linked with Samling is the logging company Alpha Logging.
Both Alpha and Atlantic also hold Forest Management Contracts amounting to 2,400 km2. In total, Samling-linked companies thus control some 10% of Liberia’s land area. That Atlantic and Alpha have the right to log such a large percentage of Liberia’s territory is a concern given Samling’s egregious record elsewhere:
• In August 2010, the Norwegian Government’s Pension Fund Global disinvested from Samling after finding that the company was involved in systematic illegal logging within and around its timber license concessions in Sarawak, Malaysia.
• Samling-linked companies have also been accused of illegal logging in both Cambodia3 and Papua New Guinea.
• In 2007, the Government of Guyana announced that, after investigating a Samling subsidiary in that country, it had found the company responsible for colluding with officials to defraud the Government.
In Liberia, companies linked to Samling also have a poor track record. In 2009, when bidding for a Forest Management Contract, Atlantic submitted its bid in the same envelope with another company linked with Samling (Southeast Resource), suggesting collusion between the two companies. This should have prevented the companies from bidding, but did not. The manner in which Atlantic has obtained its Private Use Permits also raises considerable concern. Evidence collected includes the following:
• Atlantic and Alpha have not paid their taxes: At the time that Atlantic was awarded the bulk of its Private Use Permits, the company owed the Liberian Government over US$ 2.7 million, while Samling-linked Alpha Logging owed an additional US$ 2.9 million.
• Atlantic’s Private Use Permits are based upon questionable land deeds: Of the five Private Use Permit areas held by Atlantic that we visited – all of which were justified by collectively-held deeds – community members and local leaders in four stated that they did not believe they had deeds to their land. Among these was Dugbeh River, where the above-mentioned Paramount Chief stated that a justifying letter in his name was forged.
• Atlantic’s persistence is paying off: Some of the logging rights Atlantic now holds as Private Use Permits have superseded rights originally granted under a 2011 contract between the University of Liberia and Atlantic covering some of the same forest. This deal was discredited following an investigation by Liberia’s Land Commission, which determined that the University did not have legal rights over the forest. Atlantic continued to log the area despite the invalidated contract while seeking Private Use Permits to gain access to the even
larger areas of forest in the same area.
• Atlantic has broken the Government’s February moratorium: In February of this year, the Government’s Forestry Development Authority Board of Directors ordered a moratorium on the operations of all save four Private Use Permits. Under this moratorium only one of Atlantic’s 22 Private Use Permits was authorized to
operate. However, the company has since started operating a different Private Use Permit – Dugbeh River –and it was reported in July 2012 that the company was to commence operations in two further areas in the coming weeks.
Although most of its logging concessions are not yet operational, Atlantic has already begun felling a considerable amount of timber. The company began exporting in April of this year and as of July we estimated that the company had tens of thousands of cubic meters of logs waiting to be shipped out. Much of this timber was labeled as felled under Atlantic’s agreement with the University of Liberia after the Land Commission declared the agreement invalid.
The remainder of Atlantic’s timber was labeled as felled under Atlantic’s Private Use Permit with Dugbeh River, a contract that should not be operating under the Government’s February moratorium. On this basis, it can be concluded that Atlantic had no legal mandate to fell much of the timber it has cut, timber that is now sitting in a local port awaiting export.
Our investigations also uncovered proof that Atlantic intends to convert forest land to agricultural use after it has finished logging. Earlier this year Atlantic began circulating a proposed agreement to people living in some of its Private Use Permit areas. Under the terms of this contract, Atlantic would have the right to convert the communities’ land to palm oil plantations or other agricultural use for a minimum duration of 75 years, with paltry benefits to local communities. The agreements we have seen, only one of which has reportedly been signed by community members, suggest that Atlantic may plan to set up its own subsidiary or department to operate palm oil plantations. Samling operates palm oil subsidiaries in other countries. Such arrangements would have enormous impacts on communities’ access to farming land, food and water supply, while at the same time irreversibly destroying some of Liberia’s most biologically rich forest areas. A copy of one of Atlantic’s agricultural agreements is attached to this brief as Annex II.
On August 23rd, Global Witness wrote to Samling to request comment on the above issues. As of August 30th no response had been provided.
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