Economy
The area has few roads which partially explains the relatively low population density. In June 2005 the UN Integrated Regional Information Network reported that the roads in Grand Kru had decayed and become overgrown by dense bush, rendering them impassable, except on foot, and that the bridge across the Nu River at Barclaville had been destroyed.
The primary industry is subsistence, largely slash and burn, farming. The most important crops are upland rice, cassava, palm nuts, and along the coast, fishing. Feed corn is grown at higher elevations farther inland. Sugar cane and several varieties of bananas grow in the wetland areas. Cash crops include coffee, cocoa and kola. Locally grown bamboo and piassava palm are widely used for construction, mats and baskets. Many tropical fruits, domestic and wild, grow in the region including oranges, limes, mangos, soursop, breadfruit and coconut.
Poultry, cattle, sheep and goats are found in and around most villages. Most animals are of pygmy variety as larger varieties die quickly due to the heat and humidity. Prior to the civil war the region's extensive rainforests contained a wide variety of wildlife including wild pigs, bongo, dik-dik, pangolin, civet, pygmy hippo, African buffalo and colobus monkey all of which are hunted for food and hides. Also found are snakes, and very small populations of forest elephants and leopards.
Read more about this topic: Grand Kru County
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“War. Fighting. Men ... every man in the whole realm is in the army.... Every man in uniform ... An economy entirely geared to war ... but there is not much war ... hardly any fighting ... yet every man a soldier from birth till death ... Men ... all men for fighting ... but no war, no wars to fight ... what is it, what does it mean?””
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)