In the DRC, rainforest covers 86 million hectares (about 40 percent of the country). Around 70 percent, or 60 million hectares, of the rainforest is threatened by logging. Between 2000 and 2005 the DRC lost over 1.5 million hectares of forest.

Until recently, the DRC forests have been relatively spared from industrial logging. They are a long way from the sea and lack of adequate roads and ports and political instability, the loggers have been kept at bay. Now, the roads and ports are being rebuilt, the assault on the rainforest is likely to increase.

A dozen logging companies currently control more than half of all the logging permits. These companies are from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Lebanon and the DRC. Logging activities are currently reported to cover an area of some 10 million hectares, but a current legal review process of logging titles may uncover more than this. The very real risk is that logging will be extended rapidly, especially with poor regulation and illegal logging.

Unlike in the Amazon, logging in the Congo rainforest focuses on a dozen species of high commercial value which represents about 90 percent of timber production. The main species taken are afromosia, wengé, limba, padouk, tola, iroko, sipo, sapelli, tiama, bosse, acajou and dibetou.

Congo loggers have been "taking the best and leaving the rest", so vast areas of forest are opened up and a network of tracks created to remove the valuable timber. This allows access to the remaining forest for poachers that target many of the rainforest's rare and endangered species (see below). Several tree species have been so intensively logged that they are now considered threatened by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). 

No accountability

A new Forestry Code was adopted in 2002, requiring a portion of the taxes paid by logging companies to be redistributed to local and provincial governments. This was to try to make sure that that logging benefits the local communities.
However, our research indicates that up until now local administrations haven't received any money, although loggers claim to have been paying it for years. Local authorities sometimes aren't aware of the amounts due, and local residents aren't even aware of their right to benefit from logging.

Inadequate incentives

Government agencies and public services do not have the capacity to oversee the logging industry and to fully implement and oversee forest protection.

A head of department makes less than €2 a day. Remote forest service staff are left without equipment, with no access to a car and out of contact with the distant capital Kinshasa. It's hardly surprising in these circumstances that corruption has flourished. According to Transparency International, DRC has the eighth highest level of corruption in the world.

The Forestry Code also requires "social responsibility contracts" specifying that infrastructure and services must be provided by logging companies for the benefit of local communities. The construction and maintenance of roads, construction, renovation and equipping of health centres or schools, transport of residents and goods, etc. But with no effective government in forest areas, companies frequently break their promises which leads to regular social tensions

The evidence is clear: the logging sector's contribution to poverty reduction is non-existent. Valuable timber is taken whilst local communities sink even deeper into poverty.