Illegal Timber in Congo

The report, titled "Carving Up the Congo," claims over 15 million hectares (37 million acres) of rain forest have been granted to international logging companies in 107 new contracts over the last five years, despite a 2002 government moratorium on such activity.

"Our findings expose serious lapses of governance, a massive lack of institutional capacity to control the forestry sector, widespread illegalities and social conflicts, as well as clashes with established conservation initiatives," Greenpeace says.

The report accuses international logging companies of "causing social chaos and wreaking environmental havoc" in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It details how timber worth thousands of dollars -- African teak, for example, is worth some 6,000 euros per tree on European markets -- is traded for cheap gifts and oft-unmet promises to local communities.

The report documents several such gifts, including a motor bike for a chieftain, bags of salt and crates of beer for villagers, and pledges to build schools and hospitals.

"These promises are rarely fulfilled and there are reports that intimidation tactics are used against people who try to protest," Greenpeace said, citing a lawsuit from Siforco against the Civil Society of Bumba, which complained of a "lack of respect" from the logging company and now stands trial on charges of defamation.

German company Siforco is one of those European firms that has been singled out for unscrupulous behaviour, along with other international logging companies, such as ITB, CFT, Forabola, Sodefor, Soforma, Olam, Sicobois and Trans-M.

The biggest logging operator in the DRC, Siforco has roundly defended its record in Congo. But Stefan van Traet, Greenpeace's Africa forest campaign co-ordinator, said it employs bullying tactics symptomatic of the Congolese logging industry.

"There is a court case from Siforco against 29 persons of the civil society of Bumba who complained of the lack of respect for the local communities by the logging company," he told DW-RADIO. "And the logging company said it's defamation, because they signed a petition that was handed out to the local authorities. So you can see there is a kind of intimidation when local groups question the behavior of logging companies."

Consequences for the Congo and beyond

Greenpeace estimates that tropical deforestation alone contributes up to 25 percent of the world's human-induced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The report says that logging in the Congo -- which boasts the world's second-largest primal rain forest after the Amazon -- will release up to 34.4 billion tons of CO2 by 2050, or roughly the same as the United Kingdom's emissions over the past 60 years.

Furthermore, of the 60 million people living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Greenpeace believes 40 million are dependent on the rain forests for food, medicine, energy, building materials and other non-timber products essential to their subsistence.

The group says deforestation further threatens protected indigenous ape species, including gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos.

World Bank under fire

Greenpeace has also accused the World Bank of failing to enforce the 2002 moratorium on logging in the Congolese republic. "In a context of corruption and poor governance in the DRC, the World Bank's attempts to reform the forestry sector are currently failing to control the expansion of logging," Wednesday's report found.

After a decade of war in the Congo, the World Bank resumed lending to the DRC in 2001. By 2006, it had approved credits totaling more than $4 billion, giving the international institution considerable leverage over political and economic developments there.

Following a World Bank investigation of tax records in 2002, the transitional DRC government cancelled 163 illegal logging contracts covering nearly half of the country's rain forests, and imposed a moratorium on all logging activity. But by 2006, members of the government had signed 107 new contracts covering more than a quarter of the country's rain forests, according to the Greenpeace report.

The World Bank is now conducting a legal review of titles to verify the validity of these new contracts. But Greenpeace fears that "the legal review could become an exercise in laundering illegal contracts."

The World Bank faces a difficult balancing act between environmental preservation and social justice on the one hand, and economic development on the other. Greenpeace claims the World Bank has ignored the "legal vacuum" in the Congolese forestry industry in order to promote development.