Country: Liberia

Under threat of violence, environmental lawyer and activist Alfred Brownell stopped the clear-cutting of Liberia’s tropical forests by palm oil plantation developers. His campaign protected 513,500 acres of primary forest.

At great personal risk, Silas Siakor released evidence that former President Charles Taylor used profits from illegal logging to pay for a brutal civil war, leading to a United Nations Security Council ban on the export of Liberian timber.

Alexander Peal helped create Sapo National Park, Liberia’s first national park, and founded the country’s first environmental NGO. Having fled Liberia’s civil war, he sustained its conservation movement from abroad for nearly 10 years.