Government officials and logging firm operators in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are abusing community logging permits to systematically flout the country's freeze on issuing new logging concessions, according to a recently released report from the watchdog group Global Witness.
While intended for community-based small-scale logging, so-called "Artisanal Logging Permits" are being used by foreign loggers in order to exploit DRC's forests on an industrial scale, primarily for buyers in China. "… Decades of weak laws and poor government have allowed logging companies to plunder the forests, with very few benefits reaching communities," the group wrote in "The art of logging industrially in the Congo."
A 2002 freeze on the creation of new logging concessions was designed to stop the expansion of industrial logging until long-promised reforms of the sector have been carried out. However, this misuse of artisanal permits has provided a way for officials and loggers to continue opening up new swathes of forest to industrial logging, according to Global Witness.
"The door to Congo's forests has been shut to new industrial loggers, but they are coming straight in through the window," said Colin Robertson, forest campaigner at Global Witness. "The artisanal permits are meant for small-scale logging by Congolese communities looking to improve their livelihoods. Instead they have been hijacked by companies who want to strip the forest bare with scant regard for the human or environmental cost."
In September, Global Witness issued a similar report on Liberia, in which it alleged that public officials there were abusing logging permits intended for private landowners.
