Environmental disasters such as floods, landslides, drought, hailstorms, and water scarcity are among the challenges coastal communities in the Western Area of Sierra Leone where the capital Freetown is situated are going through as the after effects of the uncontrolled deforestation. Some of the forested lands in the communities around Freetown are being turned into gardens, infrastructural sites, roads construction, etc. It is evidenced that many parts of the forest cover have fallen prey to human economic activity, a situation that is heading most of those communities to the environmental turmoil that distorts the ecosystem causing plants that provide the habitat for animals and birds to be destroyed as was evidenced in the 2017 mudslide. 

At 06:50 on Monday 14 August 2017, a hillslope on the Freetown Peninsula, Sierra Leone, collapsed, sending 300,000 m3 of debris into the flooded valley at Regent. This mudslide killed uncounted number of people in the mountain town of Regent on the outskirts of Sierra Leone‘s capital Freetown, sweeping away homes and leaving residents desperate for news of missing family members. As this debris mixed with floodwater it became a sediment-laden flood which entered a drainage channel and travelled 6 km to the coastline. The event destroyed nearly 400 buildings, claimed the lives of an estimated 1,100 people and affected 5,000 people. The mechanism was a two-stage rainfall-triggered landslide followed by a channelized debris-laden flood. The processes were similar to the nearby 1945 event in Charlotte, which killed at least 13 people.

Some of the hills in many parts of those coastal areas around Freetown which used to be bushy in the 1980’s are now bare lands and therefore subject to constant soil erosion. When we were growing up, we used to see geese, mongooses and monkeys. They are no longer seen because of forest destruction making many tree species that used to serve as medicinal trees, and wind breaker to be almost extinct. These poor land use practices include construction activities, mono-cropping, clearing and burning the vegetation and use of rudimental techniques for individual gains.

In approximately all the fifteen (15) coastal communities in the Western Area, environmental degradation is a result of multilateral processes that encroach the environment. These include socio-economic, institutional and technological activities. High agitation for economic growth, intensification of agriculture, rising energy and transportation, and urbanization results into mismanagement of natural resources thus dynamic environment changes. Hence, the frequency of natural disasters has increased greatly and there are many factors for it. First of all it the harmful human activity, which caused the climate change and distorted the balance in ecosystems. Deforestation, pollution, greenhouse effect causing the climate change and the weather patterns that have become unpredictable to numerous disasters. In fact, it is obvious that such disasters like mudslide as was the case at Regent in 2017 and flooding due to climatic alterations caused by humanity. 

It is worthy to note that since Sierra Leone is experiencing adverse climate conditions with negative impacts on the welfare of millions of Sierra Leoneans. Flooding during the rainy season, off-season rains, and dry spells have sent growing seasons out of orbit; on a country dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Alarm bells are ringing. Lakes are drying up. There is a reduction in river flow. The water table is at its lowest ebb. The red flag is up. Though much has been done in the recent past by the Government of Sierra Leone, but not much has been reflected. 

The warnings are being dismissed. It’s been business as usual among residents of those communities. This appalling climatic conditions have positioned Sierra Leone among the top most vulnerable countries to Climate Change with an average rainfall of 3,600 litres (the equivalent of about 18 bathtubs) per square metre per year, flooding affects the country on a recurrent basis. The devastating flash flooding and landslide that killed thousands in Freetown in August 2017 illustrates how the accumulation of plastics in drainage systems, compounded by poor city planning, exacerbates the problem.