Congo forests sold for a bag of sugar
One of the things less desirable side effects of peace in a country is that the carpetbaggers move in. The Congo in Africa has been wartorn for decades and only recently has become more stable politically. Now the giant logging companies of the world are competing for the valuable timber to be had from the country’s rainforests. A report released this month by Greenpeace called “Carving Up the Congo” says that an area the size of the United Kingdom is now under contract to logging companies , even though the World Bank had put a moratorium on what is the world’s second largest rainforest. Stephan Van Praet was one of the authors of Greenpeace’s report and was harassed by logging companies as he travelled through the Congo to check out the situation.