Liberia: The Ganta Tropical Storm - A Challenge To Liberia's Environment

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In March 2007, a severe tropical storm raked and disrupted normal life for the people of Ganta in Northern Liberia. The storm left scores of people severely injured, and destroyed close to 200 residential homes, offices, schools, and a hospital building. Indeed, the people of Ganta definitely deserve special care and attention for this great misfortune. However, unless, corrective steps are taken in the immediate future to compensate for years of unregulated mining, hunting, farming, and deforestation activities across Liberia, the Ganta tropical storm will be only a symptom of the many environmental problems that Liberia is likely to face now and in the future.

Ganta, like most parts of Liberia, was a flushing virgin forestland until the 1920s when the Liberian government obtained a $5 million loan from the American company, Firestone Plantations Company, at a 7 percent interest rate to offset some of its cash flow liquidity problems. The government was seriously behind in meeting its monthly payroll and other expenditures, which resulted in the intermittent payments of civil servant salaries, so the loan seemed like a very good idea. But the loan negotiations also netted Firestone a lucrative 99-year deal with the Liberian government to purchase Liberian virgin forestlands at the sweetheart rate of six cents per acre to construct a number of rubber plantations in Liberia to fuel the company's tire business.

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