Liberians Standing up for Sapo Park
Liberians and foreigners pillaging Liberia’s Sapo National Park for gold and animals be warned; community members are standing up for the park’s national recourses and saying “No more.”
Help Save Sapo National Park
Liberia - Sapo National Park
Over the past 15 months, ActionAid worked with Liberians in the southeast to educate the community about the perils of hunting and mining in the park through a Civilian Conservation Core.
Say No to Mining and Poaching
Sapo Park, the country’s largest rainforest and only national park, has survived two civil wars but poaching of rare animals such as the pygmy hippopotamus and mining continue. Sapo Park, Liberia's only national park, is part of a biodiverse corridor that is home to the highest number of mammal species in the world. Sapo Park alone is estimated to be home to 125 mammal species and 590 types of birds, including a number of threatened species like the African Golden Cat, Drill, Gola Malimbe, Liberian Mongoose, White-breasted Guineafowl, and White-necked Rockfowl.
Over the past 15 months, ActionAid worked with Liberians in the southeast to educate the community about the perils of hunting and mining in the park through a Civilian Conservation Core. ActionAid is working with Liberians to curb the illicit activities by equipping them with skills to pursue alternative livelihoods such as agriculture, ecotourism, raising goats and sheep, and fish farming. In addtion, community members are patrolling park borders to keep would-be poachers and illicit loggers out.
“They have committed themselves and established their own watch teams to actually patrol the boarders of the park to make sure people don’t get in,” ActionAid Liberia’s Director Ernest Gaie said.
Moving forward, Gaie is working to keep the program funded for another one to three years – a move he said will cement the community’s commitment to protect the park. Gaie notes that protecting Sapo National Park will affect generations to come and is dependent on short-term funding.
