By Tokpa Tarnue-tarnue82@gmail.com
Voinjama- A well-know local Journalist in Liberia’s northwestern Lofa County has expressed serious disappointment over the way logs are being extracted from the forest there for over 4 years now with little or nothing to show.
Journalist Kolubah Akoi is an advocate of protecting Liberia’s large reserve of tropical rainforest.
He has now launched a campaign through the airwaves and Social Media pressing fora revisit of the entire social agreement between Logging companies, the communities and the Lofa county leadership, calling for a careful review and implementation of said agreement.
Mr. Akoi says his heart bleeds so much when he see what is happening to his count and named some of the companies. Currently, there are three logging companies operating in that County.
“These logging companies are taking away all of the logs from our forests leaving a ruin county; packaged with suffering people, emptied hospitals and bad roads and poor educational facilities, among others.
He wonders as to when the people of Lofa will realise that this is their county and they must protect its resources for generations to come.
“We must tell our corrupt leaders that enough is enough and we are we going to demand accountabilities from our leaders and that it was time for the people of Lofa to graduate from the culture of salience that have left the county in ruin with bad roads since its establishment in 1967,” Journalist Akoi emphasized.
According to him, these companies operating in these areas of the county are building substandard structures in the name of meeting up with their social agreement with the people.
He said many at time the very drivers carrying these logs drive recklessly and on excessive speed with no regard to other local users of the road. And Mr. Akoi is therefore calling on the relevant county authorities to come out with answers as to where the proceeds from these agreements over the years have landed.
“No lawmaker has ever addressed these issues regarding the operation of logging companies in the forests during any of their legislative reports to their citizens,” said the Liberian Journalist and forest protection Advocate.
Earlier this year, Mr. Frances Seymour, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute, who called attention to the high level of deforestation in Liberia saying: “Time is running out and we really need to get on with it.”