Free-for-all youth mining, Kaisambo, Kono 2008 © Awoko newspaper
Rising to the environmental challenge
Rising to the environmental challenge
The hall was colourfully decorated with garlands of EU Member States’ flags criss-crossing the roof of the British Council in Freetown. It is 10 December 2007 and the four month-old presidency of Ernest Bai Koroma is about to launch the Gola Forest Programme. The project will protect the 75,000 hectares of tropical forest host to rare mammals like the pygmy hippopotamus, chimpanzee, forest elephant and up to 14 globally threatened bird species including the strange white-necked Picathartes and the Rufous Fishing-owl.
When fewer than 40 per cent of invited public officials turned up at the event, President Ernest Bai Koroma had no alternative but to express great disappointment and admonished his fellow countrymen of the “looming global threat” to the country’s natural habitation.
A €3M EU grant over five years was recently earmarked for the Gola Forest Programme through the UK-based Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB : ). It will start up protected area management, capacity building on all levels, livelihood programmes and community engagement in forest management planning, research and biodiversity assessment and environmental education and advocacy. The target is to protect the Gola Forest reserves for biodiversity conservation and community development, creating a new model of sustainable natural resource management in Sierra Leone. It will be implemented jointly with partners – the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone and the National Commission for Environment and Forestry (NACEF). The RSPB is itself soliciting donor support for a €10M endowment fund to generate annual interest payments to run the Gola conservation project in the future.
Gola set to become National Park
President Ernest Koroma was thrilled. He linked environmental importance to peace, stability and sustainable development. He also pledged his commitment to a transformation of the Gola Forest into a national park in the future. Koroma ended with a call to the nation to recognise the devastating impact of environmental hazards.
But the challenges facing the new All Peoples Congress (APC) government in the area of environmental protection is pile-high.Years of civil war in the sub-region saw mass migrations into virgin settlements which are still a heavy burden on biodiversity and flora and fauna. With little knowledge and experience in handling refugee situations, little attention was paid to the environmental consequences of these migrations by governments, NGOs or United Nations (UN) agencies which were responsible for the establishment of so many new settlements for people running away from danger. This was aggravated by the merciless plunder of the natural resources and the ravage of biodiversity during the war period.
Democratic order and rule of law have triggered governments of the region to attempt to control and regulate activities like logging, mining and hunting, among others, by implementing ‘bans’ on some of these activities. Logging and the exportation of timber for instance, have been banned by President Koroma’s government. A law to combat land degradation through a National Action Plan has been drafted by the government of Sierra Leone in collaboration with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. The programme aims to identify the symptoms, causes and effects of land degradation at both local and national levels. Recently the government also suspended the activities of the kimberlite mining company Koidu Holdings after a violent confrontation with community youths left two people dead.
Environmentally unfriendly
The conflict was over an allegation that the company has dispossessed community habitants of their land and the dangerous environmental impact of the company’s indiscriminate blasting operations. The mining company has also come under scathing attacks by a coalition of civil society groups and NGOs who continue to see the activities of the company as not only environmentally unfriendly, but contest that no measures have been put in place by Koidu Holdings to repair damages done to the environment after the mining operations. Koidu Holdings is not the alone in this regard.
On the other hand, in the fight against environmental degradation the government of Sierra Leone and its development partners will need to address local individual activities like cutting of trees for charcoal burning, unorganised ‘free-for-all’ illegal mining in diamondiferous areas and timber logging.
Paradoxically, all these activities are also a major means of livelihood and survival for a number of people across almost all walks of life. An extensive investigation by one of the leading national newspapers, Awoko, published a detailed account of youths on a mining rampage in the eastern Kono District. There were graphic pictures showcasing a depleted earth as miners dug under bridges and houses in desperation. More than 100,000 youths are merely searching the soil for their daily bread. This is how they see it. Another newspaper, For Di People, published a researched article naming names of senior politicians who tacitly aid and abet foreign companies in their clandestine logging activities notwithstanding the government ban. At local level, the allegation of ‘conspiracy’ extends to both local and traditional leaders.