Seeing the forest for the peace

International Herald Tribune / New York Times ^ | William Powers

[Lorianne]

BANJUL, Gambia Liberating Liberia

Twenty-five years of dictatorship and civil war, preceded by a century and a half of misrule, have made Liberia one of the world's poorest countries. But Liberia's development failures have paradoxically led to a success. Liberia has something that the world values now more than ever: a vast rain forest. . Liberia's status as a republic with strong ties to the United States kept out European colonizers, so no Western power came in to slice rails and roads into the interior. Nature flourished in splendid isolation, and today more than a third of the country is virgin rain forest, one of the largest proportions of any nation. . A Garden of Eden bloomed around the hamlets where I worked: Colobus monkeys crashed through the jungle canopy, pygmy hippos tobogganed into rivers, and sometimes the only roads through the forest were those blazed by elephants. Conservation International says that Liberia is the linchpin of West Africa's Upper Guinean forest, which is believed to shelter the greatest diversity of mammal species of any region in the world.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[forester]

so no Western power came in to slice rails and roads into the interior

What a load of liberal crap. This article should have a gag/puke alert.

Thanks for the ping ;o)

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!