New Liberia forest boss plans to increase exports, denies working with war criminal Charles Taylor

Liberia, West Africa’s most forested country, has a long history of illegal logging, which the country’s regulator, the Forestry Development Authority, has repeatedly struggled to confront.

So it raised eyebrows when Rudolph Merab, whose companies were twice found to have engaged in illegal logging, was recently appointed to lead the FDA. One of Merab’s companies was also mentioned in the trial of Charles Taylor, a former Liberia president who was convicted of war crimes during the civil war in neighboring country Sierra Leone.

In an interview with The Associated Press, for the first time Merab answered questions about his past and detailed his plans for managing Liberia’s forests, promising to increase timber exports and cut regulations.

“Commercial logging has always helped the country,” said Merab, interviewed by phone in late April, adding that more sawmills were needed so freshly cut trees could be processed within Liberia before being exported.

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Liberia, a country of more than 5 million people, is bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast, and has a long coastline along the Atlantic Ocean. Despite a recent past that includes civil war and chronic problems with illegal logging, much of its tropical forests remain lush and intact.

Merab implied that twice as many trees could be felled compared to Liberia’s previous peak without endangering its rainforests, which are home to West African