A four-day workshop aimed at sharing the vision and action frame for community forestry in Liberia begins on Monday at the Baptist Seminary on the Robertsfield Highway.

The workshop is expected to bring together a cross-section of the major stakeholders in the forest and community development sectors not only to develop a shared vision of community forestry in Liberia, but will also chart out how to support its successful development.

According to a female community dweller, the workshop is very important and timely. She said, " with the timber from this one tree, we could pay a good school teacher for our little primary school for one year." Local communities have traditionally used forests in Liberia as a rich source of food, shelter, medicine, fiber and recreation as well as pillar of culture.

Participants at the workshop to be held under the aegis of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), Liberia Forest Initiative (LFI), Center for International Forest Research (CIFOR) and World Agro Forestry Center (ICRAF), will among other things, deliberate on how the current sets of laws, policies and administrative infrastructure can accommodate what would be a new direction in Liberia's forest management.