Ma Annie Quiyea points to a space that used to be her home, – Photo: Siaway T. Miapue/New Narratives
- As climate change causes crops to fail, more people are cutting down trees for charcoal
- Fewer trees means less protection from storms that are growing increasingly destructive because of climate change
- Experts urge stepped up efforts to help farmers adapt and protect forests
BEATUO, Nimba County – Annie Quiyea sits uncomfortably on a bench in front of the cement slab that used to be the foundation of her home here in Liberia’s northeastern on the border with Côte d’Ivoire. The 56-year-old was here in May 2024 when a windstorm tore through this community leaving 85 people homeless.
By Siaway T. Miapue- [email protected] with New Narratives
Annie and her son Harris, 31, were among them. The pair barely escaped alive when the storm struck. As the wind howled, Annie and Harris, whose legs are paralyzed, remained inside, hoping to ride it out. But as the storm intensified, their home began to shake violently. Soon the walls crumbled around them.
“The heavy lightning started, and the window flew open,” Annie recalls of the moment. As she went to close the window, “the house was already over us.”
Annie’s leg twisted underneath her and broke. When villagers arrived to help they had to dig through the wreckage to free them.
Windstorms like the one that ravaged Beatuo have become more frequent across Liberia. Experts say these worsening storms result from two colliding factors: climate change and deforestation.
Climate change is intensifying weather patterns, making storms stronger and more unpredictable. At the same time, deforestation in towns and villages from Rivercess to Grand Kru has been accelerating. As climate change is limiting farm yields people are cutting down more trees – for firewood, charcoal, and agriculture – which once served as natural barriers against the wind. The loss of these trees leaves communities exposed, with no natural defense against the now more intense storms.
Cutting trees for charcoal Photo: Ricardo Partida/New Narratives
Deforestation Plus Climate Change Leads to Disaster
Liberia has long grappled with the dual challenges of deforestation and climate vulnerability. Over the past decades, its forests – a major asset in the global battle to capture carbon from the atmosphere – have been degraded by illegal logging, charcoal production, and slash-and-burn farming. According to Global Forest Watch, the country lost 153,000 hectares of tree cover in 2023 alone. According to Liberia’s 2022 Census, 45 percent of the country’s population lives in rural areas, with nearly a third dependent on agriculture. A 2024 Front Page Africa/New Narratives survey of 300 farmers in six counties found every farmer surveyed was finding farming unviable.
The World Bank has found that, without action, climate change could reduce the country’s economy by 15 percent and drive 1.3 million more people into poverty by 2050.
Once a devastating environmental event – a flood or windstorm – sweeps through an area people are left even more vulnerable to the next one. Annie cannot afford hospital treatment, so she relies on a local healer’s remedies—her swollen leg wrapped in herbal poultices, pain dulled by roots and leaves. Harris, too, is receiving similar care in a nearby village, far from modern medicine.
In River Cess County, where windstorms displaced dozens in early 2024, families like Annie’s have been forced to build makeshift shelters or stay with relatives. Local experts agree makeshift shelters – often constructed with basic materials like tarps and scrap wood – offer little protection against powerful winds and heavy rains. The inability to rebuild more durable homes or repair damaged ones keeps these communities stuck in a cycle of vulnerability, where each new disaster brings a greater risk of injury, displacement, and loss.
Can Tree Planting Fix the Problem?
One solution explored in other countries is tree planting. Uganda, for example, has implemented large-scale tree-planting programs with significant success according to reports. Since 2020 the country has planted millions of trees, focusing on both indigenous species for biodiversity conservation and fast-growing species to address immediate fuelwood shortages. This initiative has restored forests and provided economic benefits by creating jobs in the timber and agroforestry sectors. Local farmers have benefited from agroforestry, which combines tree planting with crop cultivation, improving soil fertility and boosting yields.
In 2019, Ethiopia set a world record by planting over 350 million trees in a single day as part of its Green Legacy Initiative, aiming to combat deforestation and climate change.
Joseph Masembe planting a tree with children: Photo Credit- Uganda Little Hands Go Green
In Liberia, one company – the Liberia Carbon Credit Development and Trading Corporation – claimed to have signed an agreement with partners last September promising to plant 656,000 trees across all 15 counties. They intended to sell carbon credits – big polluters can buy credits in the form of trees to offset carbon emissions on a “carbon credit” market – in return for protecting forests. (Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing plans for carbon credit trading).
But experts warn it’s crucial to approach tree-planting projects with careful consideration of local ecosystems. Choosing appropriate native species and considering the specific ecological context is vital to ensure that the benefits, such as wind mitigation, are achieved without compromising the health of existing ecosystems.
The Liberia project has not planted any trees as yet and it has been met with skepticism by experts. Dr. Emmanuel Yarkpawolo, executive director of the Environmental Protection Agency, warned that such activities must get approval from the government, and advised investors and communities to tread carefully before engaging in carbon credit schemes.
“Many of these things they have a motive of reaping carbon benefit intern of carbon credit and so as to make money,” he says. “If the intention is that, they need to reach out to the EPA and get clarity about it.”
Joseph Masembe, a reforestation expert, warns that the growing focus on carbon credit could undermine genuine conservation efforts. “Carbon credit has a financial implication; it is money,” he says. “So, the challenge that is there is people are getting into this whole carbon credit business not for the sake of alleviating and protecting the environment but because of the money that is involved… and if your primary motivation becomes the money, the sustainability of projects like that becomes suspect.”
James Otto, Sustainable Development Institute program coordinator, – Photo: Siaway T. Miapue-New Narratives
There will be no quick fix to Liberia’s growing climate challenges, say experts. It will require a multi-faceted approach.
“I think you need to address the issues around food, issues around how to sustain their livelihood, think about how to improve governance and how they will manage the little resources that will come to them,” says Mr. James G. Otto, program coordinator at the Sustainable Development Institute. “When you address those issues, you can go ahead to develop a tree-planting process.”
To be effective, Mr. Otto added, tree-planting efforts should not be seen as a quick fix but as part of a broader, community-led approach. “A tree-planting project should not be an end to needs,” he said. “It should be an end to a process—a process that is led by the community, witnessed by the community, with their interests being addressed.”
For Annie and countless others, the hope is that these discussions lead to tangible actions that not only plant trees but also restore homes, livelihoods, and a sense of security.
“Since this house fell, nobody to build it, and again, no food here; da lay hunger I taking sitting down here like this, no way for me to walk, no way for me to do anything,” Annie says with a resigned look. “My children, please try hard to help me, I beg you. I don’t know how to do anything.”
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project with funding from the Swedish embassy in Liberia. The donor had no say in the story’s content.
