Transforming Freetown: Coastal Resilience and Community- Ecosystem Based Practices

The wider coastal areas of Freetown in Sierra Leone are suffering mangrove degradation,and clearance around the capital has greatly reduced the ability of these wetlands to protect sections of the city from seasonal flooding, which regularly affects different parts of the coast, causing a loss of livelihoods and destruction of property. The coast can be seen as the dynamic frontier of the city, mainly through human settlement expansion due to lack of housing in other formal areas, resulting in the land reclamation practice known as ‘banking’, without an acknowledgement of the importance of the socioecological services provided by the mangroves located in the wetlands. By investigating collective experiences in terms of risk exposure and resilience-seeking practices, the scope of this manuscript is on the sociological relevance that the inhabitants of these risk-prone areas are given across the conservation and urbanization plans for Freetown and through an understanding of their vulnerabilities due to lack of formal planning and the relation of their livelihoods with the ecosystem services provided by the mangroves on the wetlands.