This executive summary introduces ELI’s assessment of legal and policy challenges underpinning the informal artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sector in Nigeria. The assessment presents legal, institutional, and financial recommendations designed to improve long-term health and environmental outcomes from the ASGM process. These recommendations are intended to accelerate the formalization of artisanal miners in order to encourage the development and dissemination of best mining practices.

This assessment examines the legal and policy challenges underpinning the informal artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sector in Nigeria. The assessment presents legal, institutional, and financial recommendations designed to improve long-term health and environmental outcomes from the ASGM process. These recommendations are intended to accelerate the formalization of artisanal miners in order to encourage the development and dissemination of best mining practices.

ELI has published a guidebook designed to help communities in Liberia develop and implement projects using funds from the National Benefit-Sharing Trust, an entity created by Liberia’s National Forestry Reform Law (NFRL) of 2006. Under the Trust, revenues from the country’s forest sector may be used to help communities develop according to their own priorities. The Trust collects a share of funds from the land rental fees that timber companies must pay the government and sets them aside for communities who are affected by commercial forestry activities.

This desk study identifies and describes key Liberian legal and regulatory requirements related to the construction of a trans-Liberian railroad and a port facility. The Environmental Law Institute identified potential requirements for the construction of a rail line assuming either the use of existing rail track or a new line parallel to the existing line, with the possibility of the line running in or near the Nimba Mountains.

This report was coauthored by ELI and the University of Oxford’s Department of Plant Sciences, with support from, and in collaboration with, the United Nations Environment Programme’s Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch. It undertakes a detailed analysis of the current laws, regulations, institutions, and practices affecting the management and conservation of biodiversity in Liberia. Based on its research findings, the report highlights priority actions to improve Liberia’s governance of biodiversity.

Over the past decades, and especially since the 1992 “Earth Summit,” many African countries have incorporated environmental provisions into their constitutions.