Liberian Activist Wins Goldman Prize

Against All Odds: How one man risked his life uncovering evidence that led the UN to impose timber sanctions on Liberia .

On April 24th Friends of the Earth partner Silas Siakor received the2006 Goldman Environmental Prize, the world’s largest prize for grassroots environmentalists.

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Liberia - an uneasy peace

Liberia, situated on the West Coast of Africa, is a country rich in natural resources and biodiversity. The second poorest country in the world, it is emerging from a fifteen-year period of violence and corrupt leadership.  Liberia is also home to two of the last three significant blocks of the closed canopy tropical rainforest within the upper Guinean Forest, which spans Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The forest, classified by Conservation International as one of the world’s 25 biodiversity ‘hotspots’, is home to the pygmy hippopotamus, rare duikers, the Liberian mongoose, and the largest forest elephant population in West Africa.

Exploitation of natural resources has been a large factor in Liberia's political and social instability and conflict.  During the country’s civil war from 1989 to 1997, various rebel groups used natural resources, including diamonds and timber, to procure weapons and to fund the thousands of armed rebels, including child soldiers and mercenaries used in neighboring countries. Rebel groups were known for human rights abuses and murder to secure areas of the forests. When Charles Taylor was elected president in 1997 in a disputed election process, he continued to exploit Liberia’s natural resources in order to maintain control over the country, often in contravention of existing national laws, some of which he rewrote to suit himself.

2006 heralded a new beginning for Liberia with the inauguration of Africa’s first elected female President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Liberia’s new president has already shown a commitment to ending Liberia’s corrupt power regime by dismissing the former Finance Minister, canceling all forest concessions allocated under Taylor, and has signed on to an international governance program designed to manage Liberia’s natural resource wealth in a sustainable and transparent way.  Friends of the Earth continues to work with environmental groups on the ground to empower communities to have a prominent role in Liberia’s reconstruction process.