PAPFor

Mining

Yuzhou — 2022-10-21T16:55:16Z

Gold is mined throughout the PAPFor TGKS Landscape, using both traditional and modern methods. At first, mining consisted of classic illegal gold panning (digging shallow shafts and washing the extracted earth (Sapo NP, eastern edge of the Taï NP on the Hana River)). Then, artisanal permits were issued (some legally but some illegally, such as in the FMC-F) and, more recently, dredging developed in many rivers and their banks (Cavally, Dugbe, Hana). With the former, damage to the forest cover is particularly significant, as deforestation is accompanied by long-term land degradation. With the latter, the damage consists of pollution and diversion of waterways. On the Hana river, bank revegetation sites supported by the project for six years have been destroyed by such dredging. Indirect impacts include increased hunting pressure and health impacts on workers and local residents.

Expansion of cash crops

Yuzhou — 2022-10-21T16:50:37Z

The so-called «forest regions” are conducive to the development of several cash crops: cocoa and coffee, rubber and oil palm. On the Ivorian side of the landscape, family farming facilitated by the presence of agro-industrial centres and strong migratory pressure from populations coming from savannah regions in the north and outside the country have led to massive deforestation. As a result, no more than 5% of natural forests remain in the rural domain or even in classified forests, with the exception of Cavally Classified Forest, of which around 60% is preserved . Taï NP is now seriously cut off, with no connectivity to Grebo-Krahn NP further west.

On the Liberian side, the development of cash crops was interrupted by multiple crises that shook the country from 1989 to 2003. It is now resuming both in terms of agro-industries (in the south of the landscape) and family farming. In Côte d'Ivoire, the availability of land has dried up considerably, and the flow of migrants, some of them «climate refugees», is now heading for the forests of Liberia. Although direct attacks on national parks have not yet occurred (or been very few in number), there is a very real risk of these. The risk is even greater in other forest areas (Proposed Protected Areas, State forests and Community forests), particularly in the FMC-F management unit, where the connectivity corridor between Sapo and Grebo-Krahn should be developed.

Overexploitation of forest resources

Yuzhou — 2022-10-21T16:15:48Z

The extraction of wildlife resources, often carried out illegally or unsustainably, affects the landscape's forests to varying degrees.

Poaching is very common in Liberia, particularly in the national parks, due to a high demand for bushmeat both here and in neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire (CI). This demand cannot be met from the resources of the better protected Taï NP, nor from a rural area already devoid of wildlife. Wood and non-wood products can also not be sustainably exploited, either because of the inadequacy of the regulations in rural areas (CI) or because of shortcomingin the application of the law (CI and Liberia). The Ivorian and even Ghanaian markets are particularly attractive for timber products harvested in the forests near the Cavally River, including Grebo-Krahn NP, where the conservation service needs to be strengthened and equipped.

These practices all impoverish, fragment and weaken forest ecosystems, which is serious in the context of climate change.