An investigation into forest ownership and customary land ... - Fern

‘So who owns the forest’
Access to these archives was not secured by this study. However it is believed that
despite the war many of these records are intact, although uncatalogued. In due
course these will be revelatory.
There is no central register which brings together records as to how much land
has been surveyed and titled. The only systematic titling was carried out in the
late 1970s on a pilot basis in Monrovia. This applied the Torrens cadastral system
as is laid out in chapter 8 of the Property Title (Land Registration Law of 1974).
Under one third of Monrovia was covered.
A senior official in the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy guesses that no
more than 20,000 parcels of deeded land exist in Liberia. 140 He says almost all
refer to town lots/buildings and coastal area grants or purchases. This study was
able to count less than 1,000 entries in copies of land records for Grand Cape
Mount between 1856 and 1916, and under 250 title deeds for Sinoe County
between 1860 and 1922. 141 Many of these reflected transfers of already allotted or
purchased parcels with some subdivisions.
144
The general view is that there are few entitlements for land outside the original
coastal Littoral/County Liberia. Findings from the field study suggest this is so;
no more than 33 formal entitlements were identified in Gbarpolu County, with
a much higher number estimated in coastal Grand Cape Mount. Among the 37
rural communities visited, less than 1% of households had acquired formal entitlements
for their houses or farms (chapter 3).
The only other tangible source of entitlements available to the study was the
submissions made to the FDA in March-April 2007. 142 These refer only to forested
areas of the country. Submitted deeds derived from 11 counties. Although
around 70 submissions were made, many were duplicates or were Public Land
Certificates or Tribal Land Certificates; that is, not deeds per se, just consents to
proceed towards entitlement. Only 47 submissions were rated as formal deeds
(table 10).
140 J. Johnson pers comm.
141 Liberia Collection, Indiana University.
142 FDA 2007b.