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Corrupt Practices in Liberia Could Mar Community Forestry Benefits
By: Front Page Africa
Published: December 1, 2016
Countries: Liberia
Document type: - Other -
Document ID: 3491
View count: 806
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Corrupt Practices in Liberia Could Mar Community Forestry Benefits

Read the article on the Front Page Africa website

Jonathan Yiah is the coordinator for the Forest Governance Program at the Sustainable Development Institute, a Liberian non-profit that monitors the relationship between investors and communities in the country.

He suspects that many logging applications are being pushed by logging companies who believe they’re a back door to obtaining lucrative contracts at bargain terms without going through competitive bidding.

For a logging company that wants to avoid a potentially expensive competitive bidding process, the temptation to secretly intervene at an early stage in the process and convince community leaders to sign a preliminary agreement might be high.

Yiah says that such an agreement would be unlikely to provide the kind of financial benefits that the community might obtain through competitive bidding or if it’s given legal advice from a third party during the negotiation.