FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Scores of illegal luxury mansions have been built in a national park that serves as an important environmental buffer for Sierra Leone ’s capital and the government has done little or nothing about it, an investigation shows.
The Associated Press and The Gecko Project exclusively obtained the results of a government investigation into the illegal construction that has never been shared with the public, almost four years after President Julius Maada Bio commissioned it. It found that senior government officials handed out land ownership documents.
In a visit, the AP found that construction continues.
The mansions are in the Bio Barray neighborhood, part of which has been built illegally in the mountainous Western Area Peninsula National Park, which Sierra Leone’s government has proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At least 50 houses in Bio Barray have been built or are under construction within park boundaries on land that was rainforest as recently as 2019.
This story was reported in collaboration with The Gecko Project, a nonprofit newsroom reporting on environmental issues. The reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters, and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
In 2022, Bio launched the investigation to discover how the illegal encroachment had taken place and the impacts of the deforestation it contributes to.
The investigation’s findings call deforestation in the national park “an environmental time bomb that has to be nipped in the bud.”
The government is “fully aware of what is going on,” said Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, the mayor of the capital, Freetown, and an environmentalist who plans to challenge Bio for the presidency in the next election.
She said the Bio Barray settlement is home to powerful people who were allowed to ignore the law. “They are being given permission, simple,” she added.
Sierra Leone’s capital is tucked on a strip of land between the national park and the Atlantic. Over the past decade, many of the forested hills above it have been stripped by developments, miners, cannabis farmers and charcoal makers.
Bio Barray construction inside the park is visible to anyone driving south from the capital on one of the country’s main highways.
Above the Bio Barray mansions is a reservoir providing 90% of the water for Freetown residents. The government investigation found that deforestation and other human activities in the national park could lead to a “water shortage crisis.”
Bio launched the investigation after a devastating fire near the reservoir in 2022.
Landslides are also a threat. One that occurred on the edge of the national park in 2017 killed more than 1,000 people in 2017.
The investigating committee’s 13 members — including police officers, lawyers, nonprofit workers and a member of Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission — analyzed satellite imagery and inspected documents to learn how building permits had been secured for homes inside the park.
The committee found “widespread and indiscriminate clearing of forested areas” despite a ban on construction there.
The single biggest encroachment was in and around Bio Barray, where deforestation had “increased exponentially” in the months leading up to the investigation. Maada Kpenge, managing director of Freetown’s water company until late last year, told the AP this threatened the reservoir’s integrity by increasing the threat of landslides.
Officials at the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Country Planning knew “vast stretches” of state land were being unlawfully occupied but were “reluctant to act robustly for reasons unknown,” the investigation found.
It said some officials encouraged encroachment and even facilitated it for personal gain.
Under the State Land Act, the ministry can transfer state land to private individuals, a process that can be initiated by issuing a letter. But clearing and construction inside a national park is illegal under the Forestry Law, the investigation said.
The minister at the time was Denis Sandy, who signed at least 175 documents granting land leases to private individuals, the investigation found, calling it a “flagrant violation.” It didn’t say how many of those granted land in Bio Barray.
The committee recommended punitive measures against Sandy and 16 other named officials. Sandy did not respond to several requests for comment.
The investigation’s findings were reportedly delivered to Sierra Leone’s then-chief minister, who liaises between the president and government bodies, in September 2022.
A year later, the president’s office published a photo of Bio officially receiving the findings from a commission co-chair. The accompanying statement said “people in high places” were involved in deforestation, without details.
“We will act on it very soon and do whatever is needed to be done,” Bio said.
But an analysis of satellite imagery of Bio Barray by the AP showed that illegal mansions remain standing and construction continues. Several new buildings emerged in the months after the chief minister reportedly received the report.
An AP visit last year found builders hard at work completing homes.
In November, current Chief Minister David Sengeh told the AP that various government bodies had acted on the investigation’s findings. He would not say whether the Cabinet had signed off on any punishments, saying its discussions are not public.
Sandy now serves as minister of works and public assets. Asked to comment on the allegations against Sandy, Sengeh replied, “I don’t think government makes decisions based on accusations only.”
Sengeh said the Anti-Corruption Commission was the appropriate body to investigate the allegations. But in an interview, the ACC’s head, Ben Kaifala, said no investigation had been launched and denied seeing the original investigation’s findings.
He said the ACC would look at the report and act, but added that it was the role of other government agencies to protect national parks.
“Other institutions must do their job,” Kaifala said. “I can’t do it for them.”
Another senior official who said he was unaware of the report was Thomas Kamara, executive director of the National Protected Area Authority, which manages national parks. The investigation’s findings said allegations had been made that staff under his predecessor had been involved in the sale of lands within the national park.
Kamara, appointed two months after the investigation was publicly handed to the president, claimed that all encroachment on the park had been stopped. He said he had no evidence of staffers being involved in land deals. Kamara was removed from the post late last year, accused by the environment minister of failing to address the encroachment.
In mid-2025, Bio announced that nobody is above the law when it comes to illegally selling state land. Previously, he said of illegal homes in the national park, “Even if a house belongs to me or my family, it would be broken down.”
The investigation’s findings did not name individuals with homes in Bio Barray. It identified 876 landowners in all within the national park, but only 301 came forward in response to a request for documents attesting to their land claims.
The AP identified 46 villas inside the national park boundary. A door-to-door survey of them late last year found that 14 owners worked in government jobs, according to residents, caretakers and security guards.
They included officials reportedly working in the office of the president, land ministry and the Environment Protection Agency.
Sierra Leone’s president initially agreed to an interview but later did not respond to requests for comment.
Credit: AP’s global investigative team
