Liberia is blessed with natural resources offshore and onshore such that its potential for economic prosperity is boundless. However, the country continues to languish at the bottom of the poverty ladder globally due to poor management of the resources and perennial corruption. Notwithstanding these difficulties, Liberia still has the chance to benefit from its abundant resources. However, for that to happen, the country has be alert to happenings in its environment. And that means sensitive to threats from both the people and within the natural environment.
One of the country’s natural resources that is under threat is the beaches. A resource that could provide revenue from tourism. There are algae growing along the beaches of the nation’s capital, Monrovia.
These could be as a result of foreign vessels discharging their ballast (i.e water put in vessels to keep them balanced when empty and discharged when cargo are picked up from a port). As this water contains invasive species from other regions of the world that are foreign to the water in Liberia, these foreign species are introduced into our territorial water if the ballast is illegally discharged. Thereby, leading to environmental crisis including threats to marine lives and our beaches as is shown in the feature photo.
From these developments, it shows that either the National Port Authority lacks the needed port reception facilities or dubious vessels operators are not making use of the facilities at the ports for cost reduction purposes. Also, it means our Coast Guards, Maritime Authority and the Environmental Protection Agency are not being vigilant enough in protecting our marine environment. They have all let down their guards. The GOL needs to move to stop this menace before we loose our our prime beaches across the country.