A New Film, Silas, Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Highlights the Struggle to Fight Liberian Land Grabs

Sep 11, 2017 | Jonathan Gant
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In 2012, while working for my anti-corruption NGO Global Witness, I sat down with a tribal chief in an isolated region of Liberia called Dugbeh. I was researching secretive logging deals in the country and showed the chief a letter signed in his name that had been used by a company to get a contract for his area. Alternating between anger and a world-weary bemusement, the chief told me that the signature was a forgery because the letter was in English, a language he did not speak. The Dugbeh chief was not alone in his outrage. Our investigation uncovered dozens of similar “Private Use Permit” logging contracts that had been awarded by the Liberian government. These contracts were a terrible deal, letting companies cut down entire forests while promising little cash in exchange. Most galling, however, was the cynical way these contracts stripped people of their forests: awarded in the names – sometimes forged – of rural Liberians, the contracts actually gave the forests to foreign – mostly Malaysian – companies. The heart-breaking story of how rural Liberians’ land and forests have been seized by such companies, and how some Liberians are taking a stand against it, is the focus of the new film Silas, premiering this year at the Toronto International Film Festival.