The_Open_Door_deel1

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were authorized to issue permits for a specified number of
activities in Government Forest Reserves, National Parks and
Native Authority Forest Reserves. In the case of Government
Forest Reserves and National Parks (these) permits were subject
to the approval of the Chief of the Bureau of Forestry
Conservation and the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture
and Commerce, In the case of activities within Native Authority
Forest Reserves only the approval of the former was needed. The
approval of the tribal authority concerned was not required.
The Act only mentions in this respect: "(>>,) and in consultation
with the responsible Native Authority" (27).
The activities which thus could be authorized were the following:
a) to collect, convey, remove, or subject to any manufacturing
process any forest products of plant origin;
b) to cut down or damage any trees;
c) to set fire to vegetation; logging slash, etc;
d) to dig in the soil or prospect for minerals, coal or oil;
e) to make a dam across a river, creek or other waterway;
f) to reside, or build any structure necessary in connection with
authorized forest harvesting operations;
g) to build roads, trails or railroads (22).
Whereas some of these authorized operations and activities were
not necessarily incompatible with the interests of the tribal
population of such a Native Authority Forest Reserve, the one
mentioned under g) e.g. could well constitute a threat to their
interests or conflict with them although these tribal people were
not provided with the legal means to oppose such acts which could
disturb their (economic) village life. It should be noted that
unlike the Americo-Liberians they were at this time not yet
represented in the National Legislature. The tribal peoples of
the three provinces (the Hinterland) - where most of these Native
Authority Forest Reserves were situated - were not represented in
the Senate at all and only had token representation in the House
of Representatives.
A second noteworthy aspect of the 1957 'Supplementary Act is an
obligation imposed on holders of permits to remove timber from
Government Forests (which permits would take the form of a
Timber Sale Agreement or Contract) to provide for the
regeneration of tree species removed during cutting operations
(23). This obligation thus formulated, was more precise than the
seemingly similar obligation imposed on a concessionaire with
timber exploitation rights. He was merely held responsible to
ensure that the forest areas under his agreement were maintained
for forest production (24), As the concessionaire would most
likely remove the most valuable species from his concession area
and was not explicitly obliged to replant the same species, the
potentially high value of the Liberian forest area was in fact
not protected. In this light, it is interesting to note the
Act's stipulations with respect to excise tax or stumpage fee.
Strangely enough, the Act did not differentiate according to
the tree species and their respective values. It introduced a
flat rate of $ 3.00 per thousand board feet for lumber, planks,
timber or other parts manufactured products and $ 5-00 per