Customary Land Tenure in Liberia - Land Tenure and Property ...

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Little Kola, life trees can only be felled for purposes of building a house. If the tree is cut and the house is not
built, the harvester will be charged by the town authorities for the tree. Several clans have strict rules against
harvesting from trees planted by another person. In Tengia, for example, failure to seek permission to harvest
palm nuts from another person‟s tree invokes a punishment of 25 lashes or a fine of LD500, plus payment
for any damages. Maintenance of the trees can also be important for retaining one‟s rights. In Upper Workor,
if one fails to properly maintain the trees for a period of four years or more, anyone in the community may
harvest the products or even clear the land. This has been the case with coffee trees, due to steep reductions
in the price of coffee. Similarly in Ding, abandoned palm farms were freely harvested by community
members.
The only life trees we encountered that were not planted were wild oil palm and raffia palm. When land is
cleared for seasonal farming, wild oil palms will often be left standing. In most cases, the individual or
household asserting a seasonal claim to that land will also have a seasonal claim to the trees growing on that
land and its products. In the case of Gbanshay Clan, this includes borrowers. In Ding, Upper Workor, and
Gbanshay, there is a rule that anyone wishing to harvest the nuts from an oil palm growing on someone‟s rice
farm must seek permission from the farmer and must provide the farmer with a gallon of oil in return. In
Ylan, the payment is a share of the harvested nuts, rather than the oil. However, in Dobli, the harvester has
the primary claim to the tree. Any community member can harvest the palms growing in another‟s rice field
without permission provided they do not damage the crop; the harvester is also expected to give some of the
oil produced to the farmer. Tenure for wild palms found in uncleared bush is more communal and rules for
accessing those palms are discussed in the section below on bush and forest resources.
With the exception of Saykleken, women are allowed to plant and own life trees – and thereby establish a
claim to the land they are planted on. However, married women often leave this task to their husbands or
cultivate the trees with him. In Upper Workor, high levels of war widowhood are said to be the reason why
many women are planting and harvesting cocoa on their own. All clans reported that women are prohibited
from climbing trees, including life trees, the rationale being that this is a very dangerous activity, particularly
when trees are wet and the bark is slippery. In the case of palms, this typically precludes women from
harvesting products from oil palms and tapping raffia palms for wine. Most often, women will plant oil palms
with their husbands and rely on them or other male family members to harvest the palm nuts. Women will
participate in the processing of the nuts into oil and have a claim to it. When women plant and own oil palms
on their own and do not have access to male family labor, they will often hire labor to harvest the nuts for
them. In Tengia, the danger involved in scaling palm trees means that men too will sometimes hire labor to
harvest the nuts and pay them either with a share of the oil or in cash.
As noted in the prior section, nearly all of the clans either have rules prohibiting borrowers from planting life
trees or allow it only in very particular circumstances. However, rules governing rights to trees and the
associated land if borrowers violate this rule differ among clans. In Little Kola, the proceeds from the trees
must be shared with the person who lent the land. In Gbanshay, the research team discovered that rules were
not consistent. The Clan Chief asserted that the trees could not be uprooted and that the borrower would lay
claim to the land and trees. However, the Town Elders maintained that rights to the land and improperly
planted trees would be assumed by the landholder.
Life trees are a chief source of cash income in many clans which implies that persons who face restrictions on
their ability to acquire land for planting life trees become excluded from this important cash earning
opportunity. This appears to be the case in Gbanshay where acquisition of TCs (discussed in Section 4.2) by
individuals and small groups has resulted in some families not having their own land and relying mainly on
borrowing. In clans where all or most of the indigene families have access to land belonging to their extended
family (family land, quarters, or towns) – for example, Ding, Ylan, and Little Kola – most households can
access land for tree farming on family land or town land. This may partially explain why disputes concerning
borrowers planting life trees are much more prevalent in Gbanshay than in clans where land access by
indigene families is more egalitarian.
CUSTOMARY LAND TENURE IN LIBERIA