CI Puts Communities at the Frontline of Forest Conservation in Lofa

By Jeff Massah

LOFA COUNTY, Liberia — For communities living on the edges of Liberia’s forests, conservation is no longer presented simply as a responsibility imposed from outside. Increasingly, it is becoming a shared commitment in which communities themselves are taking ownership of the forests that sustain their livelihoods.

This approach is at the heart of Conservation International’s (CI) work with forest-dependent communities in Liberia’s northwest, where some of the country’s remaining forests face growing pressure from illegal mining, logging and unsustainable agricultural practices.

Through the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Program, CI is working with communities to strengthen their knowledge, attitudes and practices around forest conservation while creating livelihood opportunities that can reduce pressure on natural resources.

The initiative recognizes a simple reality: forests are more likely to be protected when the people who depend on them have the knowledge, incentives, skills and authority to become active stewards of those forests.

Putting communities in the driver’s seat

A major step in this approach came with the signing of Conservation Agreements with 15 forest-dependent communities in Lofa County.

The communities, organized into five clusters, have committed themselves to sustainable forest management and the protection of their natural resources.

The agreements represent more than formal commitments. They are intended to strengthen community ownership of conservation by giving local people a more active role in identifying threats, setting priorities, and taking action to protect the forests on which their livelihoods depend.

Under the arrangement, CI supports communities with knowledge, technical skills, and alternative livelihood opportunities designed to make conservation compatible with household economic needs.

This is important in a landscape where many families depend directly on forests for food, income, fuel and other resources.

Rather than treating communities as passive recipients of conservation messages, the project is helping them understand why forests matter, how human activities affect forest ecosystems and what practical actions they can take to protect them while improving their livelihoods.

Changing knowledge, attitudes and practices

The project’s community-centered approach is designed to influence more than awareness.

It seeks to contribute to a gradual change in knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) among forest-dependent communities.

Improved knowledge helps community members better understand issues such as deforestation, forest degradation, sustainable farming, biodiversity conservation and climate change.

But knowledge alone does not necessarily change behavior.

That is why the project is also working to strengthen attitudes toward conservation by demonstrating that protecting forests can coexist with improved livelihoods.

The ultimate goal is to translate that knowledge and changing attitude into practical action—from adopting more sustainable farming methods to participating in community forest management and reducing activities that contribute to forest degradation.

Through agroforestry and climate-smart agriculture, communities are being introduced to production practices that can support livelihoods while reducing pressure on natural forests.

The promotion of sustainable cocoa and oil palm value chains is part of this strategy, creating opportunities for farmers to increase productivity and income without relying on practices that accelerate forest loss.

For many forest-dependent households, conservation cannot be separated from livelihoods.

As a result, the FOLUR intervention combines forest protection with alternative livelihood opportunities and climate-smart agricultural practices.

The logic is straightforward: if communities have viable economic alternatives and can earn a decent livelihood without degrading forests, they are better positioned to become long-term conservation partners.

This approach also helps move conservation away from a model focused primarily on restrictions toward one that emphasizes empowerment, participation and shared benefits.

Building a local knowledge hub

The initiative is also investing in local institutions that can help sustain knowledge beyond the life of individual project activities.

During a recent visit to Lofa County University (LCU), CI’s Monitoring and Evaluation Manager for West and Central Africa, Solomon Carlon, led a team that included FOLUR Project Manager David D. Dennis to assess the university’s role as a strategic partner.

LCU is expected to host a resource center and demonstration site that will serve students, farmers and other stakeholders in the region.

LCU President Dr. Isaac Poda welcomed the team and guided them through the university’s facilities, including the site identified for the resource center and an existing cocoa nursery.

The proposed resource center could become an important local platform for sharing practical knowledge on conservation, sustainable agriculture, agroforestry and climate-smart farming.

For farmers, such a facility can provide access to practical information and demonstrations. For students, it can provide an opportunity to connect classroom knowledge with real-world conservation and agricultural practices.

The project is also emphasizing monitoring what is happening at the community level.

Before and alongside the signing of the conservation agreements, a joint monitoring team comprising CI and implementing partners has been visiting communities to assess progress, identify challenges and listen to community concerns.

This field-based monitoring is important because community conservation is not a one-time intervention.

The broader ambition is to create a shift in how forest conservation is understood and practiced.

Communities are not simply being asked to protect forests for the benefit of the environment. They are being supported to recognize themselves as owners, decision-makers and stewards of a resource that is fundamental to their own future.

That sense of ownership could be one of the most important outcomes of the intervention.

When community members understand the value of their forests, have the skills to manage them sustainably, participate in decisions affecting them and have viable livelihood alternatives, conservation becomes less dependent on external enforcement and more rooted in local action.

For Liberia’s northwest landscape, where the pressures on forests continue to grow, empowering communities may therefore be as important as protecting the forests themselves.

The long-term test will be whether the knowledge gained translates into lasting changes in attitudes and everyday practices—and whether communities can sustain those changes beyond the project period.

For now, the conservation agreements, livelihood interventions, demonstration sites and continuous community engagement are creating the foundation for a different model of conservation: one in which communities are not standing on the sidelines of forest protection, but are at the frontline of it.