Hawa Ekua Essuman, a 32 year-old filmmaker from Ghana, received a $5,000 award for her project
« Logs of War »

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

We’ve heard about conflict diamonds, gold and oil but Charles Taylor – recently convicted of war crimes – paid for the last years of his civil war in Liberia with wood.

Silas Siakor, a Liberian activist, helped change all that. He risked his life to compile a report that convinced the United Nations to put sanctions on Liberian timber, cutting Taylor off from a last critical source of revenue. A few months later, Taylor stepped down from power.

Now, half a decade later, Siakor, winner of the Goldman Prize — the World’s most prestigious grassroots environmental award — is trying to kick-start his country’s struggling economy through a sustainable logging industry.