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Concessions to Poverty

The Forests Monitors report, Concessions to Poverty, is now complete, and available for download from this site in PDF format. Also available in French - Concessions a la Pauvrete. Please visit our Reports page to download. Alternatively, you can order a paper copy by giving us your contact details through the About Us page.

Co-written by the Rainforest Foundation and featuring important input from Congolese voices, this report aims to influence policy processes and discussions in the DRC in particular.

DRC is emerging from many years of conflict, and its forests and forest policies are in chaos. Already, there are many areas being logged now whose titles were allocated in the period of dictatorship under conditions that were far from transparent. Often, the management of these logging areas have been extremely poor and there have been serious impacts on the local environment.

Forest communities are facing terrible difficulties, particularly communities of indigenous peoples, who face discrimination and marginalisation. All communities have problems of poverty and those who have witnessed timber exploitation have also experienced additional problems including family breakdown, erosion of traditional cultures and health problems. There has been tremendous frustration as communities perceive that companies are not respecting the promises made in their "cahiers des charges" and there are many conflicts over land and resources. Very few communities are aware of their rights under Congolese law and the law itself, as concerns forests, is incomplete.

The Forest Code of 2002 was passed by a government that was extremely weak and under pressure from external donors. The law was based on a model of forest exploitation that did not consider the context of the country itself and that was too focussed on timber extraction. The capacity of the government to manage its forests is very limited and there is a real need for communities, civil society and government to increase their capacities to plan, manage, monitor and control forest use before any irreversible decisions are taken.

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