ABSTRACT
On January 16, 2006, Liberia inaugurated the first democratically elected female president in Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The historical significance was immeasurable. After fourteen years of civil war—fueled, in large part, by “conflict timber”—Liberia ushered in a new era, with a new government that recognized the role that natural resources had played in the war. 1 As one of her first orders of business, President Johnson Sirleaf restored lawful government control of the forest sector and made clear her intention to govern it transparently, equitably, and sustainably. To put an end to years of illegal distribution of forest resources, the president issued Executive Order No. 1—which, among other measures, declared all forest concessions null and void and assigned the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), in collaboration with the Liberia Forest Initiative (LFI), the task of overseeing forest sector reform (GOL 2006b). 2 The executive order demonstrated the president’s commitment to reining in the manifold abuses of the Taylor regime and creating a new system for managing the forest sector (LFI 2004a).
