At least twenty staffs of Society for the Conservation of Natural(SCNL) have undergone technical training in Customary Land Rights documentation and formalization.

The workshop organized by SCNL with support from Rainforest Trust and the EU was also attended by indigenous community members.

The three-day capacity training was organized in partnership with the Liberia Land Authority

 The Coordinator of SCNL Rainforest Trust project, Richard Hoff, said the training was important to SCNL and disclosed that the trained staffs will now go into the field to help indigenous community go through the process of being titled to their customary land.

Mr. Hoff said the training has built the capacity of SCNL staff and indigenous community dwellers in understanding the acquisition of customary land.

He said the process of customary land rights documentation is intended to work with indigenous communities and individuals to acquire legal status to their customary land to avoid further embarrassment and land conflict.

“We are collaborating with the Forestry Development Authority in this” Mr. Hoff added.

Mr. Hoff urged the participants  to make positive use of the skills and knowledge acquired from the training.

He said process will help separate customary land ownership from protected areas.

The trainer of the workshop from the Liberia Land Authority, Jerome Vanjakollie said the LLA is happy with the effort by SCNL to venture into legalizing customary land Rights in indigenous community.

Mr. Vanjakollie added the LLA will continue to provide technical support to CSOs in the land sector to avoid land conflict.

According to him, strengthening land governance leads to peaceful co-existence and enhance customary land rights.

Participants at the three-day event said they were impressed with the training and pledged to apply new things learn from the training.

A female Participant, Janet Urey of SCNL said she learn from the training that women can have ownership to the owned land like their male counterpart as such she will take said message to the rural women.

“I will educate more women about this so that they can stop relying on men before acquiring their owned land”, she said.

The project will be carried out in Gbarpolu and Grand Cape Mount Counties where SCNL is Co-managing the Gola forest National Park.