MONROVIA – In a new pilot program that could reshape forest conservation, Liberia is set to pay 28 local communities to protect their ancestral rainforests. The initiative, funded by the Irish government, is an example of a “non-market approach” to climate action, offering a direct financial incentive to communities that have traditionally relied on logging, mining, and agriculture for income.
Liberia is home to half of West Africa’s remaining rainforests, but in 2024, it experienced its highest rate of deforestation on record, losing over 38,000 hectares (94,000 acres) of primary forest. The pilot project aims to reverse this trend by providing an alternative economic model for communities in the remote southwestern Sinoe county.
The Payments-for-Protection Model
The program, led by Liberian environmental campaigner Silas Siakor, will pay communities $1.50 per hectare annually to protect 50,000 hectares (124,000 acres) of forest. This will provide the communities with a collective annual income of $75,000, which is double what they would have received from a logging company in land rental fees.
Unlike traditional REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) programs, which often involve complex, multi-year monitoring and carbon credit sales, this initiative provides up-front, area-based payments. The money will be managed by the communities themselves and used for development projects they choose, such as schools or clinics.
“It’s taking some responsibility and saying these communities are doing something for all of us, for the planet and environment, and therefore they need to be rewarded,” said Siakor, who won the 2006 Goldman Environmental Prize for his work against illegal logging.
A Pragmatic Alternative to Carbon Markets
The project is designed to be a pragmatic and transparent alternative to complex carbon markets. Art Blundell, former chair of the UN Security Council’s monitoring panel on forestry in Liberia, praised the initiative for its simplicity. “It’s really pragmatic and not too fancy, so it doesn’t require a bunch of intensive monitoring to make sure they’re meeting their commitments,” he said.
Community members, with the help of Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority, will patrol the forests for illegal activities. Funders will monitor compliance through satellite analysis and site inspections. If the communities fail to meet their commitments, payments will be docked.
While the current funding is only secured for a two-year pilot, the organizers hope to find additional donors to scale up the project to 200,000 hectares. If successful, the initiative could serve as a case study for “non-market approaches” to forest conservation, a priority for 20 countries holding over 62% of the world’s remaining tropical forests.
“The big thing is this is a way to get money to local people and Indigenous communities, because the carbon market, even though it talks about that, it doesn’t do it,” Blundell concluded, underscoring the potential for this model to empower local communities directly.