Liberia looking for a sustainable economic future at Rio+20 0
MONROVIA - Deep in the forest in Gbarpolu County, northwest Liberia, a group of men working a surface gold mine are asked what will happen to the land when they are finished with it.
They laugh, and shoot each other confused glances.
Gbessay Musa, who says he left Sierra Leone in search of work three years ago, delivers a cheerful response.
“We will leave the place when there is nothing left,” he exclaims. “We will find another site where there is money. The land here, it will just be here.”
Happy for a break from digging under the day’s hot sun, the young men are in good spirits, and more laughter follows. Musa is asked if he cares about the land, or just his gold.
“The people down here, they are getting by,” he answers, not fully understanding the question; his only consideration is for the livelihoods of the men who work with him.
The miners’ indifference is understandable. After 14 years of civil conflict that only ended in 2003, opportunities for education and meaningful employment in Liberia remain limited. The war devastated this West African nation.
A March 2011 World Bank report states that Liberia’s energy infrastructure was “completely demolished,” that piped water access fell from 15 percent in 1986 to less than three percent in 2008, and that the national road network was left in “a state of severe disrepair.”
To say that the government of Liberia has a number of competing priorities would be an understatement. It could easily share the attitude of the miners in Gbarpolu and forego concerns for the environment amid the rapid development of the country’s natural resources.
Yet ahead of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference for Sustainable Development scheduled for Jun. 20 to 22, the impoverished nation is leading a push out of Africa that calls for economic prosperity and environmental sensitivity, and asks that the two no longer be treated as mutually exclusive.
As executive director of the Liberia Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it is Anyaa Vohiri’s job to ensure that Liberia’s natural resources are managed in a sustainable manner. The task can be a challenge, she tells IPS.
“You’re looking at immediate needs. So my role at the EPA is to say, ‘Okay, yes, we need all of the economic benefits, but not in a way that shoots our self in the foot,’ ” Vohiri says.
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