2017-06-12 African Forest Forum / Forestry Development Authority - Rapid Forest Carbon Stock Appraisal Opening Speech

The following is a more or less verbatim account of the speech I gave today as a substitute for our Country Director at Rapid Forest Carbon Stock Appraisal (RaCSA) workshop being hosted by the African Forest Forum in Monrovia. 

The Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority;

The Chairman of the AFF Secretariat;

The ****** (fill in according to attendees);

Ladies and gentlemen, may I simply say ... "All protocols observed".

******** 

Dr. Mary Molokwu-Odozi expresses her sincerest apologies for her unfortunate absence today due to 

her very crowded schedule. I hope that my few words may suffice on both her behalf and for Fauna 

& Flora International.

*********

My name is Carl Wahl, and I am currently serving as FFI's Project Manager for the Wonegizi REDD+ Pilot Project in Lofa County. Though I am relatively young as a West African, I am somewhat aged as a Southern African, having spent twelve years working mainly in the Republic of Zambia, but also in the Republic of Malawi and the Republic of Mozambique, respectively. 

It is a privilege to stand before you and discuss the fundamental aspects of trees and forests in Liberia, a country recognized as the last bastion of West Africa's forests, specifically, the Western Guinean Lowland forest ecoregion which encompasses nearly 100% of the Liberian nation. And, although it it is repetitive to say it, Liberia, despite her relatively small size, contains nearly half of the forest in West Africa. 

However, these facts are a poor representation of the awe-inspiring nature within the forests themselves. In the past eight months, I have had the privilege to periodically work with demarcation and carbon-assessment teams in and around the Wonegizi Proposed Protected Area. What I see on those trips are sights that are worthy of the same acclaim as the Redwood Forests in the United States, or the massive temperate rainforests of southeast Alaska where I worked as a US Forest Service Forest Ranger. In Wonegizi I have seen absolutely mindblowing profusions of trees of gargantuan proportions, with root buttresses spreading 10 to 15 meters across the forest floor, bearing up trunks of trees of more than a meter and a half in diameter stretching in height to 40 meters or more. Within these forest strongholds exists such a diversity of life, both known and unknown, that enumerating it would take far more than the short time alloted to me.  

Unfortunately, this walls of this bastion of forests are slowly crumbling. In some cases it is the exportation from the forest of a local or international commodity, such as timber, precious minerals or bushmeat. In others, it is the crowding in of a growing population clearing forested land to grow crops to support their families. Though I may be struck down for saying this as a conservationist, I feel an sense of empathy with either case; both my grandfather and my great-grandfather were loggers who along with many other men at that time exploited the great pine forests of Northern and Upper Michigan in order to provide for their families, send their children to school, and in a small sense, contribute to the development of the American nation. In that sense, a Liberian family or the Liberian nation is no different from my ancestors in that they are capitalizing on the highest value forest resources to perpetuate and improve their families livelihoods. 

What spurs this explotation? In simple terms, I would say that currently there is relatively little value for leaving the forest or the forest resources alone, or even for sustainable offtake of forest resources. Rather, a poor person looking for money to put clothes on their childrens' back, pay for their children's schoold fees, or to purchase seed rice to plant their fields, ends up being coerced by his or her poverty to exploit whatever available resources are at hand in order to meet those most pressing needs. When this poverty is multiplied across a village, a town, a clan, a district, a county, or a country, the forests literally suffer death from a thousand cuts. 

I want to emphasize this fact: currently in Liberia, forests only yield monetary returns upon removal of a forest resource from the forest base. In a society that is increasingly joining the monetized global economy, there is almost no compelling reason for a citizen not to protect or sustain these resources. 

This is the fundamental heart of the ideas underlying the principles of Payment for Ecosystems Services. Whether it be a conservation agreement with a protected area, or a national benefits sharing mechanism for monies received from the sale of carbon credits, PES represents a series of mechanisms whereby nations with extensive forest resources such as Liberia can commodify these services that we have heretofore taken for granted; provision of clean water, provision of clean air, stabilizing the soil and agricultural base, regulation of pest and disease outbreaks, and the like. In this specific workshop, the enumeration of Liberia's forest carbon stocks will no doubt be the primary focus of discussion. This is a critical first step in the long process of developing the national carbon market to the state at which Liberia governments, communities and individual citizens can actually see benefits from the act of positive management of forest resources as a viable alternative to unsustainable exploitation. 

Payment for ecosystem services is still a new thing, not only in West Africa, but the world as whole. Therefore, I would like to urge the assembled attendees to approach this workshop with an attentive and open mindset so that we can make Liberia a pioneer of payment for ecosystems services to which the region and the Continent may look to as an example!

With that, I would like to thank the assembled participants, our facilitators from the African Forest Forum, our hosts from the Forestry Development Authority for allowing me to declare this workshop officially open. 

In Kaoma, 130 miles east of Mongu, for the last week of inputs distribution for the CA project. This is our biggest district; rather than 900 farmers as is the case in Mongu and Senanga Districts, here we have 1,400 farmers. They are scattered all hell-to-breakfast … unlike the previously mentioned districts, Kaoma farmers settlement patterns are less dictated by limited access to decent land, so they are shotgunned randomly about the place.

Let me back up a bit.

Mongu and Senanga Districts are dominated by either a massive drifts of Kalahari sand (matema) interlaced as it were with the floodplains of the Zambezi or its tributaries (litapa). Interspersed in the plains are rises that don’t usually flood (masuzu); along the edges of the plains is the interface (shishanjo) between the mostly infertile sands and the silt-laden, relatively far more fertile floodplains. The shishanjo and masuzu areas are coveted for their fertility and typical safety from the annual floods; hence the combination of good soil, seasonal grass for grazing fodder, and access to water (imagine digging a well in beach sand and you’ll realize why they favor the margins) causes people to cluster along the plain margins.

The western side of Kaoma district is somewhat like this, but as you approach Kaoma, you start to see termite mounds, which are conspicuously absent from most of Western due to the sand. Parts along and north of the road, plus on the eastern side of the district, have a much shallower sand layer. Consequently, people tend to “hunt” for soil. This is not a new thing for me … my two years of Peace Corps service were in a village about 150 km northeast of here the next district, Kasempa, and up there people did the same thing.

Brief aside: part of the reason I started in farming was that everyone in my village / catchment area would wander off into the hills to their fields from October to February; with nothing else to do, I did as the Kaondes did and farmed … albeit closer to the homestead.

Anyway, Kaoma is part of the reason I often wonder if Zambia doesn’t have too much land. Farmers go all over creation, find a plot, clear the trees, till it for a couple years to grow maize (usually without fertilizer), exhaust it, and repeat. Because the ownership is based on usufruct rights (you own it until it’s obvious you’ve abandoned it), because fertilizer is so difficult to come by, and because it’s what’s been the norm forever, it’s really not conducive for people settling down on a piece of land and improve it.

There’s more to it than that, but topical treatments all you get for now.

So … Kaoma Boma (remember, British Overseas Military Administration makes for a very Africa-friendly name for each town) is something of a boom-town. Since I’ve been in Western, three medium size sawmills have opened; two are owned by Chinese nationals (referred to as the Chinese, as if they were all one), the other by a Zimbabwean (I think). Commercial logging is not new to Western Province ... back in the 1920’s, the British South Africa Company (BSAC) built the only private railroad line in Africa between Livingstone and Mulobezi, 85 km north, to mine out the Zambezi Teak (Baikiaea plurijuga, mulambwe). I say mining because in these sands, trees don’t grow back very fast … especially when no one replants them. Anyway, the Z. teak was or is in the top five of wood in terms of price per board foot; most of the parquet floors in the colonial-era houses in the urban centres of central and Southern Africa are make from teak, as is a bunch of the furniture. As far as I know, it’s almost a permanent thing.

Next best, and favorite among the locals is mukwa (African teak, Pterocarpus angolensis) … it’s preference stemmed partly from its absolutely lovely color in the heartwood (deep purple) in contrast to the nearly off-white sapwood. It was also easy to shape with hand tools, so for carpenters throughout the country, mukwa was tops. It has also suffered quite a beating, though not as bad as the Zambezi teak. In truth, I have yet to see a teak board, though a German associate of mine has a concession on the far side of the Lui River; when he goes to cut, I might take a day off and photograph them, hopefully find some seeds.

Anyway, the sawmills take mukwa, but what they are hitting hard is the Zambezi Redwood (muzauli, Guibourtia Coleosperma). It was never much liked in the past … too hard for the local tools, and too far away for the Brits. However, it’s a fine, bright red, hard wood that responds well to power tools; plus, it’s in far greater abundance. For now ... some of the Chinese outfits have brought in chainsaws to help the locals bring them down faster, plus if they have petrol leftover, it helps with squaring the logs (you get $8 a log if it’s squared rather than $5). Anyway, it’s a bit worrying to see the stacks of lumber all bound for the export market.

 

It’s the usual, from what little I’ve read, for Africa. It’s pretty much a hole in the ground that you dig out copper, coltan (PS3 and cell phone users take note), rare earth, gold, timber, oil, etc. for as cheap as you can, and replace it with shit. When people are this poor and the government (at least the local side) is so broke, you have the perfect situation to exploit man and nature (by pitting the former against the latter). I keep scratching my head and wonder where we’re headed as a race if we keep pounding our environment like we do … the scary thing is, I doubt we’ll ever win that match.

 

The logging’s given Kaoma something of the flavor of a boom-town. Sawmills running the whole day; drunken truckers; bars roaring out a mix of Congolese rhumba, Celine Dion, and Shakira (and oddly enough, Don Williams). There are some great handles to the beer joints … “Power Boozing” (which also sells auto spares next to the Chibuku), “Chocolate City (1 and 2)”, “Cassava Lima Pleasure Resort”, and the somewhat lyrical “West Point Joint, where friends make sense”. People are a bit more raw here as well; none of the feigned aristocracy of Mongu or the sleepy riverside aspect of Senanga. Here, it is in your face, CHINDELE-MUZUNGU-MUKUWA ringing out constantly, nshima dinners with hefty price tags, Primus beer (how they get beer from Bukavu to here is way beyond me).

 

As is always the case … can’t wait to break out into the field tomorrow.