UNDP to strengthen environmental commission

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is to help strengthen the Liberia National Commission on the Environment under a project expected to cost US $450,000. The project agreement was signed on 2 September by the UNDP and the Ministry of Development. The Commission is responsible for coordinating and overseeing environmental management and analysis in Liberia. The project will facilitate Liberia's signing and adherence to the international conventions on Climate Change and Biodiversity and facilitate the implementation of a national environmental outreach programme. This aims to ensure that the Liberian people are better educated on major environmental concerns. Liberia is endowed with valuable natural resources but uncontrolled exploitation of these resources and other unsustainable activities have created environmental degradation that needs to be addressed urgently, according to UNDP. The most significant causes of these problems are shifting cultivation, logging, fuel wood harvesting and charcoal production, human settlements, illicit fishing and unsustainable mineral and sand mining activities. Environmental awareness has been affected by the lack of an environmental policy, fragmented environmental laws and the absence of an enforcement mechanism. The Commission on the Environment was activated in late 1998 to combat the degradation of the environment.