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From: Reuters
Published July 31, 2008 08:43 AM
http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/37819
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congo, home to the world's second largest tropical forest, launched a review of all timber contracts on Wednesday in an effort to clean up a business rife with corruption and to recoup millions of dollars in lost taxes.
The World Bank-sponsored initiative will look at 156 deals. Most were signed during a 1998-2003 war and subsequent interim government accused of awarding numerous dubious logging and mining contracts.
In 2002, with the country partially under the control of rebels, the Democratic Republic of Congo issued a five-year moratorium on new logging contracts as part of efforts to stem rampant deforestation aggravated by the conflict.
The measure went largely unheeded and companies continued to sign newdeals.
Logging and land clearance for farming are eating away the Congo Basin, home to more than a quarter of the world's tropical forest, at the rate of more than 800,000 hectares a year.
Amongst the biggest timber firms operating in Congo are Siforco, which is a subsidiary of Germany's Danzer Group, and Portuguese-owned Sodefor, a unit of holding company NST.
Together with a third company, Safbois, they account for more than 66 percent of the timber exported from Congo, researchers say.
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PROFIT LAUNDERING
Conservation campaigner Greenpeace accused the Danzer Group on Wednesday of employing a system of price fixing and off-shore accounts to avoid paying taxes on timber harvested from Congo and neighboring Republic of Congo.