LIBERIA is to pass land rights legislation that would prevent foreign companies uprooting communities to make way for mining and logging, said Reuters which cited “activists”.
Liberia’s Senate passed the Land Rights Bill last week after four years of debate. The law recognizes customary land rights – the rights of communities to ancestral land – as equal to private ownership, yet will be tough to implement, said Reuters.
The Senate was the most difficult institution for the bill to get through, said Ali Kaba of Liberia’s Sustainable Development Institute, who worked with lawmakers to revise it. The House of Representatives, which passed the bill last year, must now approve changes before it goes to the president to sign into law, but no major setbacks are expected, he said.
