Land grabbing and land reform

But just as the importance of reform should not be under- The mechanisms driving this counterintuitive situation estimated, neither should the challenge facing the presi- include the volatility of revenues from the natural resource dent, nor the power of the opposition arrayed against her. [...] In the longer term, slower but more thoroughgoing reform of the resource sector will likely yield better results In the years since the sanctions were imposed, continued for both the economy and the security of the country. [...] The second is a more thor- miners were deeply suspicious of the validity of the survey- oughgoing reform of Liberia’s mining act, planning for ing process, and in particular of the US$260 fee that the which was just beginning in mid 2007 in the Ministry of survey team planned to charge each miner who wanted Lands and Mines. [...] The conservation provisions of the NFRL are clear and unambiguous: a minimum of 30 percent of Liberia’s forest While the macro numbers look impressive, the vast land is to be set aside in protected areas, linked together increase in GDP and export earnings was the result of the by a network of conservation areas. [...] In the aftermath of this incident, the government in Monrovia declared a moratorium on the buying and sell- The Liberian state lacks the wherewithal to remove the ex- ing of rubber in Sinoe County.3 The measure was a serious fighters by force, so several attempts have been made blow to the ex-combatants, and a potentially dangerous since 2003 to set up an interim management committee and de-stabil