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

Summary
partners in economic development, not end-of-chain beneficiaries. Both will
indeed lose part of their (past accustomed) share of profit by the involvement
of a third partner, communities, but these losses will be outweighed many times
over by the gains to stability in the sector and by the conservation efforts, which
communities, by being recognised as forest owners, will provide. There will
also be the incalculable benefit of embarking on a path of genuine development
matched by growth.
The key instrument for this is clear.
Broadly, if it is changes in law which have
most diminished the property rights of
the rural majority, then it will be the law
that restores those rights. Clarification of
forest ownership is a pivotal element of
this reform, for it is treatment of forestland
If law diminished rights
then new law must restore
them
,,
rights that have most brought the contradictions of people’s law and government’s
law to the fore.
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Map 8 – County map of Liberia showing forest cover loss
1979-2004
Prepared by the geographic information systems and remote sensing laboratory of FDA