Livelihoods

By David Goodman   Beneath the thick canopy of West Africa’s forests, there are dark secrets. In the sleepy Liberian town of Mano River Congo, Sierra Leone beckons across the broad river. A lone border guard sits in a ramshackle shelter—a converted Ebola treatment unit—and checks the occasional visitor who arrives by boat. The golden…

By Nouhou Ndam   West Africa’s forests are rapidly disappearing, with only 10% left to shelter both wildlife and humans alike in what had been a massive forest complex stretching from Guinea to Cameroon and covering 680,000 square kilometers (km2). To halt and reverse the deforestation threatening the remaining forest cover (70,000 km2), including the…

By Chidera Okeke, Global Mamas Community Outreach Specialist.   For the past 17 years, Global Mamas has progressed in its mission to create a life of prosperity for women across Ghana by creating and selling handmade fair trade products. The upsurge of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a derailment in the organization’s activities and threatened to…

By Edudzi Nyomi, WA BiCC Communications Specialist In the early weeks of self-isolation and physical distancing, a few curious friends asked my opinion about the supposed positive environmental effects of COVID-19 stemming from us staying at home. The question remains legitimate even as countries around the world—including Ghana, where I live—have substantially eased restrictions on…

“Forest Blessings,” a 24-episode radio drama series produced by the West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) Program, has officially launched in the Mano River Union (MRU) countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire. The drama was created to raise awareness about forest conservation issues, including deforestation, forest degradation, and biodiversity loss. These…

By Darius Barrolle   Radio dramas are a part of Sierra Leone’s rich culture; hence, it is no surprise that “Watasay Ston,” a new radio drama series and form of entertainment-education, has quickly emerged as one of the most popular in the country. One reason behind its success is that all stakeholders, including the government,…

By Mark Dahn   In Liberia, upland rice farming and shifting cultivation are practised by many rural farmers. The people of lower Sokpo Clan in Grand Cape Mount County near the Gola Forest National Park (GFNP) are known for practising this unsustainable farming method, which is a major threat to the park because the farmers…

By Fatmata Katta   Sierra Leone’s Sherbro River Estuary (SRE) is rich in biodiversity, including turtles, manatees, sharks and crocodiles. Designated as one of the country’s four marine protected areas, the region is also reported to host about 58% of Sierra Leone’s total mangroves, and other coastal habitats in the region include beautiful sandy beaches,…

The tropical stillness is cut by the sound of a low-speed buzzsaw. Or so I think. On closer listen, this is the drone of thousands of buzzing bees. I instinctively tense up. My mind screams danger. To Jenkins Zarweah, the sound of bees is the sound of music. He smiles broadly as bees buzz benignly…

This fall the Global Mamas team, in collaboration with USAID and the West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC), is embarking on an exciting new endeavor combining two goals that are an inherent part of our mission: creating sustainable livelihoods in communities with limited economic opportunity while at the same time acting as environmentally…