Failure to enforce a crucial forestry law is undermining the Democratic Republic of Congo’s economic growth and endangering its tropical forests, according to a recent report.
The DRC bans exports of raw, unprocessed logs, the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) notes in its report. But it allows a 10-year grace period for new concessions to export up to 30% of harvested wood as logs, although at least 70% must be processed into products like plywood before export to promote local processing industries and generate jobs and revenue.
The EIA, however, found that from 2015-2023, 74% of the DRC’s wood was exported as unprocessed logs, with China the main destination.
Further investigation into two Chinese logging giants, Wan Peng and Booming Green, which together control more than 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of forest concessions in the DRC, revealed widespread disregard for the country’s forestry laws.
Both companies allegedly engage in various illegal activities to meet the demand for unprocessed logs in China, the EIA found. These include routine violations of harvesting quotas, misdeclaration of species to facilitate overharvesting, and routine bribery. A manager at Wan Peng admitted to bribing “the General” to obtain a concession, likely a reference to Gabriel Amisi Kumba, a former chief of staff of the DRC army who was sanctioned by the U.S. and EU for human rights abuses, the report notes.
The undermining of the DRC’s forest governance “seems to be part of a larger business model for these companies,” Luke Allen of the EIA told Mongabay. This has “huge implications” for the DRC’s forests, he added, since the country hosts 60% of the Congo Basin rainforest, the world’s second-largest tropical forest, after the Amazon, and is a major carbon sink.
By not processing wood within the DRC, the industrial logging supply chain also contributes little to the country’s economy, which Allen called “a very bad deal for the government.”
“The report offers another powerful insight into the turmoil of industrial logging in DRC and the meagre benefits it offers in terms of local development, stable employment or tax revenues,” Joe Eisen, executive director of the Rainforest Foundation UK, told Mongabay.
At the same time, the DRC is considering ending the moratorium on new logging concessions that’s been in place since 2002. This would be “potentially extremely risky,” Allen said, without resolving existing governance issues.
The EIA has called on the DRC government to implement its log export ban and clarify enforcement responsibilities.
“A log export ban would go some way towards keeping the value chain in DRC — as it has done in neighbouring countries, although we believe a more fundamental rethink is needed of how the country’s critical forests are managed, centred on promoting vibrant local green economies through community forests and other rights-based models,” Eisen said.
Wan Peng, Booming Green and the DRC environment minister hadn’t responded to Mongabay’s requests for comments by the time of publishing.
Banner image of unprocessed logs by EIA US.
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