Freetown: putting down roots for the future

In Regent, above Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, the mountain came crashing down one rainy night, leaving a scar of red earth and at least 1,141 lives buried beneath it. From that wound emerged the idea of reforestation, transforming Freetown, the city of freed slaves, into Treetown, the city of trees. A city that does not reject its roots but instead starts from them to imagine its future.

A green future stretches from the hilltop villas with panoramic views at Leicester Peak down the slopes and into the slums along the Atlantic coast. Freetown the Treetown is the name of a project launched by the city government in partnership with associations and community groups across 64 neighborhoods in the metropolitan area.

On August 14, 2017, the Regent landslide forced authorities to evacuate an entire neighborhood and left scars that remain visible today.

We stop at the very place where the mountainside collapsed.

“No one knows how many people remain buried because no one knew exactly how many houses stood here before,” says Gianni Bagaglia, an aid worker with the AVSI Foundation. He still lives in Regent and had only recently moved from Italy at the time of the disaster.

Before us, the mountain appears split in two. Along the exposed earth left bare by the landslide, a forest is growing back. The city committed to planting 100,000 trees to stabilize the soil. Counting them is difficult, but greenery is steadily reclaiming the landscape.

Freetown is a maze of hills and informal settlements. Compressed onto a narrow peninsula between the mountains and the ocean, it is one of Africa’s most densely populated capitals, with approximately 8,450 inhabitants per square kilometer.

Deforestation was encouraged by a land development law introduced in 1960, just before independence from the United Kingdom. Under the law, anyone purchasing land was required to build within three years or lose the right to do so.

Homes with colonial-style balconies and wooden patios continue to appear on the hillsides, while corrugated-metal shacks spread across beaches regularly flooded by the Atlantic Ocean.

The response to these challenges has been trees.

Freetown’s goal is to plant five million trees by 2030, not only in Regent but throughout the metropolitan area, all the way to the entrance of the peninsula and the markets of Waterloo, a suburb named by the British after their victory over Napoleon.

The Freetown the Treetown project was launched in 2020. Its first phase received support from international donors, including the World Bank and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Mangroves were selected as a priority species, with more than 300,000 already planted. They are particularly effective in combating coastal erosion and flooding.

The project’s overall results, currently totaling more than 1.25 million new trees, are certified and verified.

Using an app equipped with a QR code system, local activists transmit photographs and information to a central database, allowing them to plant and monitor the growth of each individual tree.

In the Kolleh Town informal settlement, mangroves have already formed a small forest along the shoreline.

“After every storm, we remove plastic bags and other waste washed ashore by the ocean that could suffocate the plants,” explains Martha Bayoh, one of the activists.

She has two children and works as a mangrove grower responsible for caring for the trees. For each day of work, she earns the equivalent of three dollars. Sierra Leone’s monthly minimum wage is about thirty-three dollars, although much of the economy remains informal.

Working alongside her is Kadiatu Turay, a tracker responsible for verification and data transfer.

“We have to photograph the trees one by one using our smartphones,” she says, showing a brightly colored app. “Each tree has a tag and a number. The contract provides ten days of work per month. The only real problem is if your phone breaks.”

Saibatu Sandy, a member of FEDURP, an organization founded within the slums, also speaks about the project’s costs and benefits.

“We are the problem, and we are the solution,” she says, pointing a finger at her chest.

“The workload is especially demanding from April to October during the rainy season, but overall the project works. Many participants have been able to start small businesses, while others have managed to pay rent and send their children to school.”

Another major benefit is the reduction of flood risk.

“Houses here are built on artificial embankments that are highly vulnerable,” Sandy explains, “because many of them rest on landfill sites made up in part of plastic waste.”

The city of Freetown operates with limited financial resources. The idea is to access new funding through the international carbon credit market by encouraging private investment.

One of the key terms is token: a digital representation certifying that a company or institution has offset the emission of one metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent by supporting a verified project.

We discuss this with Abdulai Thaimu Bundu, an advisor to the city administration on the project.

The first question concerns the risk of speculation by multinational corporations that, on a global scale, contribute to pollution and accelerate climate change.

“The priorities are transparency in investments, so that they have a real impact, and the creation of a portfolio open to anyone who genuinely wants to contribute to reforestation,” Bundu assures us.

“There are also other issues, such as signing an agreement with Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Lands and Spatial Planning. There must be a long-term commitment so that future governments do not dismantle what has already been achieved.”

Political dynamics should not be underestimated.

The key figure behind Freetown the Treetown is the capital’s mayor, Yvonne Denise Aki-Sawyerr.

A graduate of Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone’s oldest and most prestigious university, she later continued her studies in the United Kingdom, earning a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

After a career as a manager and financial consultant in London’s financial district, she returned to Sierra Leone in 2015 to contribute to the fight against the Ebola epidemic, first as a volunteer and later in a leadership role coordinating the public health response.

Internationally, this commitment earned her appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, an honor bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II.

According to several interviews, her decision to enter politics, with a particular focus on environmental issues, came in the aftermath of the Regent landslide. It was this event that prompted her to run in the 2018 elections.

Today, 57-year-old Aki-Sawyerr enjoys considerable international visibility. She has received several awards across Europe and co-chairs C40 Cities alongside London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a global network that has described Freetown the Treetown as a “highly replicable” initiative.

At the national level, Aki-Sawyerr belongs to the political opposition. So far, however, this has not hindered reforestation efforts.

Support for tree planting also comes from senior officials in the national government, including supporters of President Julius Maada Bio and members of the Sierra Leone People’s Party.

We meet Mima Yema Mimi Sobba-Stephens, Deputy Minister for Environment and Climate Change, beneath the Cotton Tree, the enormous kapok tree under which, in 1792, the founders of Freetown, formerly enslaved people liberated by the British for fighting alongside them during the American Revolutionary War, gathered to pray and give thanks to God.

The trunk was broken during a storm in 2023, yet the tree remains a national symbol. It even appears on Sierra Leone’s ten-leone banknote.

We persuade the deputy minister to pose beside the roots, which are protected by a raised concrete structure separating them from the pavement at a busy intersection.

When we ask her to touch the tree, she explains that she cannot. In local cultures, the dark wood carries spiritual significance, much like iroko trees and other centuries-old giants.

The conversation turns back to politics.

“Commitment to reforestation is essential for preventing landslides, combating coastal erosion, and addressing climate change,” she emphasizes.

“We must also reduce reliance on firewood and charcoal, fuels that more than 80 percent of Sierra Leoneans still use for cooking because of limited access to electricity.”

Accompanied by comedians and street performers, Mimi visits a local market.

She speaks through a megaphone to curious shoppers and busy vendors carrying large plastic basins on their heads filled with bananas, coconuts, and soft drinks.

The deputy minister wants to persuade them to purchase high-efficiency cookstoves made from sheet metal and ceramic.

The stoves cost between 200 and 300 leones (roughly 8 to 13 U.S. dollars), more than a traditional open-fire cooking stand. However, they are durable and consume 60 percent less charcoal.

Among the crowd, street entertainer Ibrahim Bushereb sings:

“Cook quick, cook clean, cook more.”

Blending Afrobeat rhythms with verses in Krio, the local language that incorporates elements of English and, in some cases, French, he helps spread the message.

The stoves are manufactured by startups, small businesses, and worker cooperatives not only in Freetown but also in Kenema and Bo, the country’s second-largest city, located about four hours by car from the capital.

It is there, in a roadside workshop, that we meet Doreen Sambo.

Twenty-two years old and dressed in blue coveralls despite being a university student, she sets down her tools and talks about herself.

“I’m in my final year of political science here in the city,” she says. “My thesis focuses on the impact of military coups in West Africa, with chapters on anti-corruption efforts, the need for stability, and citizens’ rights.”

Sambo walks toward a worktable equipped with hammers and bending tools used to shape metal panels.

Smiling, she says that it is possible to “love your country” through work as well.

She then points to ceramic fireboxes and metal ash drawers, components assembled into high-efficiency cookstoves, which she produces at a rate of three per day, or about twenty per week.

In this and other workshops, it is the members of the Girls Energy Action Development Initiative who weld and test the finished products.

“The primary goal is to reduce pollution and smoke,” Sambo explains.

“During the rainy season, when people spend long periods inside metal-roofed homes, smoke can become deadly.”

The production and sale of improved cookstoves have expanded thanks to international support, particularly through Energising Development (EnDev), a program implemented by Germany’s development agency GIZ and coordinated locally with the support of the AVSI Foundation.

Back in Freetown, we discuss the initiative once again with Bagaglia.

“Support for improved cookstove production is fully aligned with the strategy of both the city and the national government,” he explains.

“The national target is to enable one million households to adopt clean cooking methods by 2030.”

The issue is also a major public health concern.

“It is estimated,” says Stephen Mulbah, one of EnDev’s coordinators in Sierra Leone, “that traditional open-fire cooking smoke kills approximately 600,000 people every year across Africa, most of them women and children.”

So beyond carbon emissions and forest conservation, what is at stake is human survival itself.

And in Freetown the Treetown, trees are protected alongside the people who depend on them.