Report : biodiversity sector assessment

The assessment questions served to assess current drivers and threats to biodiversity, efficacy of past USAID interventions, and identify other approaches to biodiversity conservation. The assessment applied a predominantly qualitative approach, conducting direct observation, 53 key informant interviews, and 24 focus group discussions across Nimba, Grand Bassa, and Sinoe counties. The findings of the assessment established that well-documented threats and drivers to biodiversity persist in Liberia. Shifting cultivation, hunting, and chainsaw logging present the most significant threats, and these threats are driven most likely by corruption, governance, poverty, and markets. In promoting biodiversity objectives, the Community Forest Management Bodies (CFMBs) lack capacity to manage forest resources, understand forest value, and address power dynamics with commercial companies. CFMBs are dependent on the Forestry Development Authority, which itself lacks operational capacity and resources, limiting its responsiveness to CFMB needs . USAID’s work to address these threats and drivers has been most effective through its inclusive, bottom-up approach to develop the 2009 Community Rights Law and the nine-step process, ensuring strong buy-in by community members and governance structures in the management of community forests. To build on these successes, a major entry point for USAID is to strengthen CFMB management to prevent exploitation of communities and ensure that forest resources can be used sustainability by those that depend on them as a livelihood source. The assessment found little evidence that alternative livelihood interventions effectively offset reliance on biodiverse areas. Interventions implemented to protect an ecosystem require behavioral changes of all the human variables within the system.