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CHAYEE TOWN, Grand Gedeh \u2013During the Liberian civil war, warring factions fought over forest resources. Sampson Zammie, an ex-combatant, finds himself protecting the very forest he once scrambled for two decades after the conflict ended. However, this time, he has a different foe: cocoa farmers. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zammie is the leader of the Bloquia Community Forest<\/a>, who, against all odds, has fought illegal cocoa cultivation. Bloquia measures 43,796 hectares in Grand Gedeh\u2019s Gbarzon District along the Cestos River on the borders with River Gee and Sinoe Counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bad idea to clear the forest because it is our supermarket, food warehouse, building material and drug store. Whenever our people get sick, we go in there and pick those special traditional leaves and treat them,\u201d says Zammie in an interview with The DayLight in Chayee, his hometown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is our ancestral heritage. We are under an obligation to protect it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to Zammie and local forest guards, Bloquia is the only community forest that has not been cleared for cocoa farms. Burkinabe migrants have encroached upon every forest in Grand Gedeh County. The tally includes eight community forests, several large-scale logging concession areas, and two proposed parks. Backed by their Liberian landlords, the migrants apply chemicals or set fire to the base of trees, gradually transforming virgin woodlands into vast forest graveyards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between 2002 and 2024, Liberia lost 390,000 hectares<\/a> of primary forests, according to the Global Forest Watch, an app that tracks deforestation, utilizing satellite imagery. Grand Gedeh alone lost 59,000 hectares during this time. Last November, London-based Global Witness found a link<\/a> between the world\u2019s leading chocolate producers and deforestation in Liberia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Burkinabes, also known locally as “Mossi,” migrated to the Ivory Coast in the 1930s, becoming a majority of the plantation workforce and boosting that country\u2019s cocoa industry. In search of new cocoa farmland, they began crossing into Liberia in the 2010s by canoe, on foot, and on motorbikes. The Liberia Immigration Service has registered 55,000 Burkinab\u00e9s in southeastern Liberia, with 48,000 in Grand Gedeh alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Locals, including people in the neighboring Neezonnie Community Forest, welcome them with open arms. They see cocoa as an end to years of poverty and underdevelopment. The locals enter agreements with the migrants, wherein they provide the land and the migrants plant and nurture the cocoa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t have a problem with the Burkinab\u00e9s because through them, I have a house today that is worth more than US$17,000,\u201d said Morris Totaye, a Polar Town resident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey are very strong, hard-working, and always willing to work. In my mind, they should stay here because they are helping to develop the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Residents of Totaye and Neezonnie cite a failed logging contract as justification for their cocoa activities in their community forest. In 2011, Neezonnie and Bloquia signed a logging contract with A&M Enterprises Inc., owned by Aisha Conneh, the wife of Sekou Conneh, the ex-leader of Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD. A&M then subcontracted another firm, the Liberia Hardwood Corporation. The contract promised roads, schools and a clinic for residents. However, instead, the contract ended in a fierce legal battle at the Supreme Court in Monrovia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018\u2026Never betray my people.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Zammie and the people in Bloquia are aware of the opportunities that cocoa brings. However, they have chosen legality and heritage over ill-gotten wealth. In forestry, farming in a community forest without the FDA\u2019s authorization is illegal. There are several cases<\/a> involving the FDA, Burkinab\u00e9 migrants, and local people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zammie has refused several offers to rein him in. In an audio recording of a phone call with Emmanuel Zongo, a spokesperson for the Burkinab\u00e9 community, Zongo promises Zammie CFA 5 million (US$8,853.13) to plant cocoa in Bloquia. Zammie turned down Zongo\u2019s offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI rejected his offer because it amounted to bribery and corruption,\u201d Zammie says. \u201cI told him that I would be destroying my children\u2019s future if I had accepted his offer, and that would amount to a betrayal of the community\u2019s trust. I can never betray my people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reporters traveled on motorbikes for over five hours, deep into the isolated belly of Grand Gedeh, where the forest thickens, and the road steadily disappears beneath bush and broken earth. A convoy of two motorbikes squealed over fragile wooden bridges and through narrow, mud-slashed paths, tilting dangerously at every bend. There was Zammie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A soft-spoken, slim, grey-headed man, Zammie joined the Armed Forces of Liberia in 1990 as a private. From 1992 to 2003, he served the disbanded Liberia Peace Council and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia as a battalion commander. After the war, Zammie, now disarmed, returned to Chayee Town, desperate to turn his life around, eager for a fresh start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His chance came in 2016 when Bloquia, established five years earlier, headed for elections. Zammie contested for the chief officer, the one who runs the daily affairs of a community forest, and won on a white ballot. Liberia had passed the Community Rights Law\u2026, empowering locals to participate in forest governance and share in its benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zammie uses his wartime experience to organize the community\u2019s forest guards. With Zammie\u2019s oversight, guards regularly deploy across the forest to monitor and remove illegal occupants. His guardianship against encroachment also extends to protecting a 266,910-hectare logging concession<\/a> adjacent to Bloquia, ravaged by cocoa cultivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But like his time as a combatant, leading Bloquia has been a difficult journey for Zammie, who often faces off with encroachers and local authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2023, Zammie was removed as chief officer of Bloquia, following a controversial election. However, he was later reinstated after the FDA overturned that election’s outcome, retaining him pending a fresh poll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zammie and his guards struggle daily to prevent Burkinab\u00e9s and their Liberian hosts from illegally occupying the Bloquia forest. At least 30 Burkinab\u00e9s have been detained and removed from Bloquia by the Zammie-led forest guards, a video shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the video, Zammie can be heard interrogating a group of Burkinabes in Farblor, a village between Bloquia and the large-scale logging concession. Sitting on the ground with folded hands, the men listen to Zammie nervously as he scolds them for encroaching on the community forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zammie also faces threats from Grand Gedeh authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last April, anti-riot police officers fired at forest guards who had gone to evict illegal occupants. In a video clip of that incident, Zammie is seen presenting ammunition to a local official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Applause<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Zammie accuses Alex Grant, the Superintendent of Grand Gedeh County, of masterminding the shooting incident. Now, Zammie travels with dozens of men in a motorbike convoy, as the cocoa crisis in the southeast has resulted in deaths<\/a> and injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGrant has always threatened to get rid of me because he said I am standing in his way,\u201d says Zammie. \u201cHe wants to take over Bloquia and make it his personal farm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grant did not respond to queries. However, speaking on \u201cForest Hour\u201d on Okay FM last year, Grant called Zammie \u201ca fugitive.\u201d He called on the police to arrest him \u201cwherever he is found.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Forestry campaigners have frowned on the constant harassment of Zammie. In a joint press statement last July, they showed solidarity with the Bloquia savior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSuch threats against a citizen who is acting in the national interest are unacceptable,\u201d says Andrew Zelemen, a forestry campaigner. \u201cWe take these allegations seriously and demand a full, impartial investigation. Zammie\u2019s safety must be guaranteed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grant is a major player in Grand Gedeh\u2019s cocoa rush. Last October, Grant signed a 30-year lease agreement with a Burkinabe businessman for 500 acres of ancestral territory in the B\u2019hai District. The deal was later terminated <\/a>due to several irregularities. Months earlier, Grant had received<\/a> over CFA 4 million (US$7,111) from B\u2019hai citizens to secure a deed for the same land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, Zammie\u2019s effort to protect Bloquia Community Forest has been hailed. Beyan Woi, regional management officer for the southeast, is one of his admirers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI would like to give it out for the Bloquiah Community Forest. I want to thank Sampson Zammie\u2026,\u201d says Woi. \u201cHe is working tirelessly daily and, through him, we don\u2019t have any Burkinabe in that forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEveryone must give him applause for his great work in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Top: Sampson Zammie, Chief Officer, Bloquia Community Forest, Gbarzon District, Grand Gedeh County. The DayLight\/Harry Browne By Varney Kamara CHAYEE TOWN, Grand Gedeh \u2013During the Liberian civil war, warring factions fought over forest resources. Sampson Zammie, an ex-combatant, finds himself protecting the very forest he once scrambled for two decades after the conflict ended. 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