By: Liberia Initiative to Combat Climate Change
Coastal Erosion is affecting people homes in slump communities along the coastal
In Buchanan, Liberia’s second largest city, coastal erosion has destroyed dozens of homes and left over 200 residents homeless; government authorities fear the entire 200,000-person city is at risk. Erosion is thought to be mostly caused by uncontrolled mining.
Since the major communities of eight of Liberia’s fifteen counties are located near the shore, coastal erosion is an issue along the whole country’s coastline. However, it appears that climate change is not the culprit.
Two years ago, the UN’s Development Programme (UNDP) and the Liberian government jointly completed an assessment on the country’s environmental situation, which found that uncontrolled sand mining is mostly to blame for erosion.
Eugene Shannon, Liberia’s Minister of Lands, Mines, and Energy, recently told reporters in Buchanan that people are stealing rocks and metal barriers that were once utilized as sea defenses. “One of the major factors responsible for the coastal of the coast in Buchanan is the extraction of the breakwaters which some of the residents are using for construction purposes,” stated Shannon.
