Birdlife Partner – The Society for the Conservation of Nature in Liberia (SCNL)

The African-Eurasian Flyway (AEF) is one of the four great global pathways migratory birds use.  Stretching from Greenland and the Arctic to southern Africa, the flyway is used by hundreds of millions of land and waterbirds every year, and the habitats within the flyway also support hundreds of non-migratory bird species, many of which are globally threatened. Various human pressures, including habitat destruction and degradation, illegal hunting and trapping and climate change, severely impact the flyway.

Working at a flyway scale enables this essential ecological connectivity and builds collaboration across borders, raising our collective ambition, problem-solving together, sharing knowledge and leveraging the power of partnership.

Sierra Leone and Liberia lie at the heart of the flyway and are of great importance for forest conservation. The programme will build on the many years of successful work with the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone (CSSL) and the Society for the Conservation of Nature in Liberia (SCNL).

RSPB will focus on supporting SCNL to expand its Forest Communities Livelihood Programme (FCLP) within the 350,000ha Greater Gola Landscape. Improving livelihoods helps conserve the vital Protected Areas and Community Forests within this landscape. ‘Forest-friendly’ livelihood activities can be enhanced, such as producing shade-grown cocoa, ground nuts and swamp rice; sustainable use of non-timber forest products such as honey; and paid patrolling of Protected Areas and Community Forests by community-based conservation teams.