ABSTRACT
Liberia contains West Africa’s most important tropical forest, and the relationship between people, the land, and forests is central to all aspects of Liberian life. From its establishment through the voluntary settlement of freed slaves from the United States in the 17th century, the country has been troubled by the autocracy of a business and political elite over rural people, which has been reflected in logging concessions. Land rights were one of the main drivers for 14 years of civil conflict that finally ended in 2003 following the imposition of UN sanctions on the timber industry. Following the conflict, all logging permits were cancelled, an entirely new legislative framework was developed, and community forestry has become, for the first time, a realistic possibility in policy terms. The story of community forestry shows what goes wrong if elites are allowed to set the terms in advance of either the rules and regulations or of the capacity to nurture genuine community forestry.
