Project Summary

Liberia’s forest resources face several challenges and threats that are posing considerable damage to the integrity of the ecosystems and the provision of essential ecosystem services, including soil quality, forest cover and forest health, water quality, and plants and animals. To address the numerous threats and underlying causes leading to biodiversity loss, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) is implementing a three-year project titled “LEH GO GREEN”. It is a European Union-funded project (4.8 million USD) which is focusing on forest users and forest fringe communities in Liberia's Northwest and Southeastern landscapes, including Gola Forest National Park and Grebo-Krahn National Park.

The project seeks to address livelihood and climate change mitigation barriers through proposed actions. These interventions will help enhance forest restoration in degraded areas, promote diversified livelihoods that can respond to environmental shocks and stresses, and increase economic engagement and opportunities for underserved populations, especially women and youth. Additionally, actions taken will support the sustainable utilization of forest resources to achieve economic and conservation outcomes, promote incentive-based and collaborative conservation agreements, reduce the impact of commercial logging to enhance community stewardship and benefits from sustainable forest management and build local capacity to engage in carbon market dialogues.