The Problem: Without traceability, illegal logging often harms community forests

Illegal logging thrives in Liberia’s forests due to a lack of traceability and transparency. Timber from community forests and other areas can currently be harvested, moved, and sold with weak oversight, incomplete documentation, and little to no public visibility.

Deforestation and forest degradation are rampant across Liberia, and a significant amount of this forest loss and degradation is driven by illegal logging. Global Nature Watch data shows that from 2002 to 2025, Liberia lost 2.7 million hectares of tree cover. 16% of that loss was primary forest.

There are some key issues that enable widespread illegal logging in Liberia: insufficient oversight across timber supply chains, weak legal enforcement for timber sourcing, and inadequate and incomplete implementation of timber traceability systems.

The Traceability System

EIA and Code4Nature, both international nonprofit organizations, co-developed the Liberia timber traceability system in close collaboration with LICSATDUN, CS-IFM and MFGAP, and with generous financial support from EFI and the UK government.

The LC-TTS has two main components: a mobile application for registering timber transport information and roadside checks, and a public geoportal to visualize this data.

The mobile application captures key information about the timber’s journey: the time and date of registration, the GPS location, photos of the load, and the movement of the truck as it travels.

The public geoportal visualizes timber transports and makes the data accessible. Data collected on the mobile app is automatically synchronized into a centralized database and displayed on a public website geoportal for users to explore and use it.

Why focus on chainsaw-milled timber

Chainsaw milling is the practice of felling a tree in a forest and using a chainsaw on site to saw the log into planks or boards. In Liberia, chainsaw milling has long been a major source of timber for the domestic market.

Building Markets described the domestic timber sector as significant but historically under-recorded, with timber from small-scale domestic operations often not tracked in official statistics and extracted without valid permits. Forest Trends notes that chainsaw milling expanded in the post-conflict period to supply reconstruction and local markets. This solidified its role in local supply chains, tying it closely to the livelihoods of many people in Liberia.

The ubiquity of chainsaw-milled timber in Liberia makes a transparent traceability system a critical tool for forest community protection. If chainsaw-milled timber is not properly registered when it is first loaded onto trucks, and if the truck's journey is not recorded, official checks later in the supply chain become much weaker.

This is complicated by the fact that this timber is often transported via roads that are difficult to monitor. Forest Trends’s work on kpokolo (rough-cut squared logs) also shows how quickly powerful actors, like big business interests, can exploit this supply chain and drive more intense forest degradation.

When implemented across Liberia, the LICSATDUN chainsaw timber traceability system will help reduce illegal logging and ensure stronger revenue collection for local communities.