The Political Ecology of Tree Logging for Timber in Koinadugu District, Northern Province, Sierra Leone

Abstract

Background: In rural Sierra Leone, particularly the northern Koinadugu District, commercial timber logging has rapidly expanded into a primary livelihood strategy. While economically significant, this booming trade raises severe ecological, climatic, and social anxieties among local populations. Despite these escalating changes, empirical research capturing how rural communities directly experience and perceive these shifts remains scarce. This study evaluates the socioeconomic and ecological impacts of timber extraction from the perspective of the communities living through them.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional, mixed-methods study across Koinadugu District between November and December 2022. Quantitative data were gathered through structured questionnaires with community residents, complemented by qualitative key informant interviews with forestry officials and local authorities. Quantitative findings were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while qualitative insights were synthesized using thematic analysis to evaluate logging practices alongside community environmental shifts.

Results: Among the 261 participants surveyed (78.5% male), logging was universally recognized as a vital mechanism for economic survival, driven heavily by systemic poverty, structural unemployment, and a rising cost of living. However, these immediate financial gains coexist with severe localized crises. Environmentally, residents reported stark micro-climatic disruptions, including dropping rainfall levels, surging temperatures, recurrent droughts, deforested landscapes, and degraded soil structures. Socially, the trade correlates with alarming community challenges, including spikes in drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, robbery, accidents, and child labor. While participants value short-term job creation and business growth, they expressed deep distress over accelerating environmental damage and the weak enforcement of forest protection laws.

Conclusion: Timber logging in Koinadugu District functions as an immediate economic lifeline that simultaneously compromises the long-term environmental and social stability of rural communities. Resolving this friction requires a swift transition away from weak institutional oversight toward rigorous forest governance, strict legal enforcement of environmental boundaries, and the targeted investment in sustainable alternative livelihoods to reduce rural dependence on destructive logging.

Keywords: Timber logging; Deforestation; Climate change; Livelihood; Environmental degradation; Koinadugu District; Sierra Leone.