History

Sierra Leone is home to incredible diverse wildlife on land and in marine habitats. Once the country was covered with precious rainforests and mangrove forests. All of them sites of high biodiversity. During the last decades the forests are under severe threat and with it the habitats of animals and the livelihood of people of Sierra Leone.

Our forests are disappearing, we feel the consequences of human made climate change stronger every year. We know the solution is the conservation of our forests and our natural resources.

CSSL was founded in 1986 by Dr. Sama Banya with the mission of promoting the wise use of Sierra Leone’s precious natural resources. For the last 35 years, we have been putting all our efforts in conservation and preservation of our forests, our precious natural resources, and the sustainable livelihood of people in Sierra Leone.

During the last 35 years we gained many partners on our side. We widened our network in-country and international to achieve our goal of protecting biodiversity and securing livelihood.

Today CSSL can count on many members who have the same passion for conservation and nature as we do. We have our headquarter in Freetown from where we run our programs in the Western Area Peninsula and in the South. Our staff in Kabala and Kenema work directly with forest edged communities and government organisations for the protection of nature and wildlife in the Greater Gola Landscape and around Lake Sonfon.

Without our partners we wouldn´t have been able to achieve what we have achieved until today. We are happy to share with you important events and achievements of our history.