DAKAR: Forty percent of Liberia’s forests have been sold off in secretive and often illegal contracts, Global Witness said Tuesday, just days after the country’s president announced a probe into the issuing of permits.
An investigation by Global Witness showed that in the past two years, a quarter of the west African nation’s landmass has been granted to logging companies, according to the report published Tuesday.
“The new logging contracts termed Private Use Permits now cover 40 percent of Liberia’s forests and almost half of Liberia’s best intact forests,” said the natural resource watchdog.
“They have given companies linked to notorious Malaysian logging giant Samling unparalleled access to some of Liberia’s most pristine forests.”
Samling and its subsidiaries have been involved in cases of illegal logging from Cambodia to Guyana to Papua New Guinea.
“Unless this crisis is tackled immediately, the country’s forests could suffer widespread devastation, leaving the people who depend upon them stranded and undoing the country’s fragile progress following the resource-fueled conflicts of 1989 to 2003.”
On Friday President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced an independent probe into the issuing of these permits, after suspending the managing director of the Forestry Development Authority, Moses Wogbeh.
Liberia forests sold off in secret logging contracts: report
Liberia forests sold off in secret logging contracts: report
Vince Zampella, video game pioneer behind ‘Call of Duty,’ dies at 55
Vince Zampella, one of the creators behind such best-selling video games as “Call of Duty,” has died. He was 55.
Video game company Electronic Arts said Zampella died Sunday. The company did not disclose a cause of death.
In 2010, Zampella founded Respawn Entertainment, a subsidiary of EA, and he also was the former chief executive of video game developer Infinity Ward, the studio behind the successful “Call of Duty” franchise.
A spokesperson for Electronic Arts said in a statement on Monday that Zampella’s influence on the video game industry was “profound and far-reaching.”
“A friend, colleague, leader and visionary creator, his work helped shape modern interactive entertainment and inspired millions of players and developers around the world. His legacy will continue to shape how games are made and how players connect for generations to come,” a company spokesperson wrote.
One of Zampella’s crowning achievements was the creation of the Call of Duty franchise, which has sold more than half a billion games worldwide,
The first person shooter game debuted in 2003 as a World War II simulation and has sold over 500 million copies globally. Subsequent versions have delved into modern warfare and there is a live-action movie based on the game in production with Paramount Pictures.
In recent years, Zampella has been at the helm of the creation of the action adventure video games Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
