The_Open_Door_deel1

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The Forestry Development Authority officially took over all of
the functions and existing projects of the dissolved Bureau of
Forestry Conservation. The new agency's effectiveness was,
however, greatly hampered by the lack of files and the improper
definition of its relations with the Concessions Secretariat.
It inherited the (incomplete) archives of the Bureau of Forest
Conservation but those of the Concessions Secretariat and the
Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs remained where they
were. The situation even deteriorated when a senior official of
the Concessions Secretariat who was transferred to the Forestry
Development Authority occasionally returned to the Concessions
Secretariat to consult and borrow certain files and sometimes
failed to return them.
TIMBER CONCESSION POLICY
Some early attempts to exploit the timber resources
It is very likely that it was in 1909 that the first time timber
rights were granted to a foreign company, and in a very large
area. The 1909 Amendment of the 1898 concession agreement between
the Liberian Government and the Excelsior Mining Company granted
the latter timber exploitation rights in the whole of Maryland
County except privately owned lands, (Note: virtually all
privately owned lands was in the hands of Americo-Liberians as a
result of the practice of giving 10 acres to each colonist upon
arrival. Tribal areas were not considered to be privately owned)
(32). This was during the Administration of President Arthur
Barclay (1904 - 1912). However, no large-scale timber cutting
operations seem to have been carried out, possibly owing to the
lack of infrastructure in this County, possibly owing to a lack
of (financial) means. It is not known when this agreement with
this mining company expired nor when these' timber rights were
terminated. It is even possible that officially this was never
done.
In the early 1930's it was reported that the Liberian Government
was to grant the Danish-Liberian Syndicate large concessions for
roadways, public works, forests, lands and minerals (33)« No
details are available indicating that a definite agreement was
ever signed nor is it known whether even actual logging
operations were carried out. Given Liberia's transportation
facilities or rather the absence of such facilities in those
days it is more than likely that no logs or lumber products were
exported. Neither did there in those days exist a domestic market
for timber products which could have justified logging activities
on a profitable scale.
The 1926 Planting Agreement with the Firestone Plantations
Company had already granted this company the right to engage in
timber operations - though limited to its own use. The March 1935
Amendment of the Planting Agreement subsequently gave the rubber
company "the exclusive right to engage in any operations upon the