User:Smithamos/ Liberia Gola Forest Community Description

 Liberia  Gola Forest Community Description Liberia has several forest lands ear-marked for protection or conservation since the 1980s. Gola Forest in the western part of Liberia bordering the Republic of Sierra Leone is one of such forest which is home to diverse species of importance to the country. Kongba a district located in Gbapolu County in the northern portion of Liberia. One of 6 districts that comprise the first-level of administrative division in the county. Bopulu serves as the capital www.tlcafrica.com with the area of the county measuring 9,689 square kilometres (3,741 sq mi).[1] As of the 2008 Census, it had a population of 83,758, making it the eleventh most populous county in Liberia.[1] Gbapolu was created in 2001 www.wikipedia.com when it was split from Lofa County, Gbarpolu is the youngest county in Liberia, while the County Superintendent is Gertrude Lamine.[2] The county is bordered by Grand Cape Mount County to the west, Bomi County to the southwest, Bong County to the south, and Lofa County to the east and north. The northwest part of Gbarpolu borders the nation of Sierra Leone. The community is made up of 4 clans, Sorkpo Clan in Porkpa district, Tonglay and Zuie Clan in Kongba district and Jaweijah Chiefdom. There are 24 villages in the Gola Forest of Gbarpolu. 27 of the villages are accessible by road while four are inaccessible to motor road. Community dwellers use foot path to bring their commodities and services to the other towns with motor roads birdlife.org/community. Leadership in the community is purely by traditional authorities, birdlife.org/community. but centers of such authority are very few in relation to the number of temporary mining camps. The landlord-stranger system is the main means to regulate activities of migrants to the forest (mainly miners), but the system is currently weak due to town being distances and limited roads, transportation and communications. Some chiefs are not correctly installed or properly elected and therefore lack authority amongst disgruntle illegal miners. Most of the original inhabitants, Gola people became refugees during the war and were slow to return and reassert control of their villages. Diamond and gold have been the two major mineral resources of the www.visitsierraleone.org Kongba community even before the founding of the Republic of Liberia. They have continued to serve the people of the community and others from far and near. As early as the 1900s the people of the community could not pay taxes to government in cash but in goods of diamond and gold. This practice continued until the late 60s. All towns and villages are involved in mining activities and have large stranger populations from countries such as Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger etc. Whenever there is a new discovery of diamond or gold in a village there is a large migration of both miners and business people to that particular center for the time that the minerals are being mined. Livelihood activities include farming (slash and burn), alluvia mining of diamond and gold and hunting of bush meat. Over 50% of the villages have fewer than 100 inhabitants. www.birdlife.org, Kungbor has the largest population, followed by Zuie and Nomo. Butter Hill, Nomo, Fula Camp, Camp Israel, Fornor, Kawelahun and Kungbor are of medium size. There are two types of communities: the more permanent and stable communities - which have developed retail services, palm oil production, cocoa and coffee cultivations and more established houses (with zinc roofs), and the unstable transient towns or camps which are newly established or only inhabited in the dry season when mining activities take place. Kungbor, Zuie, Kawelahun, Fornor, Tonglay Village, etc. are classed as permanent communities. On this basis, six forest edge villages in Grand Camp area and eleven in Zui clan are classed as permanent settlements. Five communities in Gbarpolu County are classed as not stable.il Men/women ratio is on average of 3, implying that on average there are 3 times more men than women in the communities. In 70% of the villages, www.scnlib.net there are more men than women. This may be explained by the presence of mines close to the village as mining is mainly done by men. In one village, Sonah Creek, the population consisted solely of men. Similarly, gender ratios in Soso camp (17 times more males) and ULC (9 times more males) are highly skewed towards males. The most spoken language of the community is Mendi even though the land is owned by the Gola speaking people. During the tribal wars the Golas were over powered because of the British influence in neighboring Sierra Leone so many of the Gola people absorbed in to the systems of the Mendi who were in large numbers from across the border as a result and also the fear that they could be taxed as foreigners they camouflage their identity but the names of the rivers and towns are still remain. Creating sensitization and awareness in this area is strictly done in the Mendi language which can be used to transmit information to the general population in the district. At general meetings the people of Kongba will prefer listening to people speaking to them in Mendi and when there is a very serious issue of concern regarding land ownership than it must be addressed in the Gola language which would avoid the general public from understanding what is being discussed since Mendi is spoken by both Liberian and Sierra Leonean while Gola is only spoken by Liberian. ...