Conservation Conversations 13

A Nice Little Sweetener!

It has been reported (http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,2054272,00.html) that major forests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with some trees (e.g. African teak) worth £4000 each have changed hands from local landowners to major logging companies (from Europe, the USA and China), in some cases, for "a few bags of sugar"or promises of rudimentary school buildings that sometimes fail to materialise. It has been estimated that more than 80% of logging in the DRC is illegal and that more than 40% of the forest in this country will be lost if logging continues. Loss of the forest (noted in Conversation 12 to be precisely in a location where trees currently reduce global warming) would exacerbate things by releasing 34 billion tonnes of carbon. Much of the extracted wood from the DRC is apparently supplied by the logging companies to Europe as flooring, furniture and doors. The legality of the arrangements (although in some cases encouraged by the World Bank) is (given the recent unrest in the DRC) certainly most unclear. Students may also wish to consider that the DRC is one of the four countries with very high concentrations of endangered primates and that habitat loss is a serious issue for these species.