Central Monweh, Gbarsaw, and Dorbor in Rivercess County Authorized Community Forest have benefited from intensive training on the usage of the TIMBY app to monitor, protect and report on illegal occurrences in the forest.
TIMBY (This is My Backyard) is a secure mobile reporting application that allows on-the-ground reporting anywhere in the world. It has been working to help local communities hold parties or individuals accountable for their actions.
A total of 51 persons including 19 females and 32 males benefited from the training. Edward Suloe, of the Forest Governance Program (FGP) at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) facilitated the training and created awareness and education on the roles and responsibilities of forest guards.
He named some of the unethical or illegal things that forest guards should monitor such as hunting of wildlife, especially endangered species; forest fire; environmental degradation [wasting of harmful chemicals in the forest, creeks, and rivers, among others].
Others include poisoning of creeks, rivers, and streams to kill fish; illegal pit sawing in the community forest, already given to a logging company or forest set aside for conservation and harvesting of logs outside of identified areas.