(Illegal) Timber production operations of a big logging company in a Democratic Republic of Congo village © R. Tegtmeyer, Global Witness
(Official) Industrial-scale timber production operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo © R. Tegtmeyer, Global Witness
The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation provided a grant of £40,000 towards two projects in 2007/08.
Global Witness exposes the corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems, to drive campaigns that end impunity, resource-linked conflict, and human rights and environmental abuses. The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation is supporting our Equitable Forest Policy work calling for the implementation of universal measures to curb illegal logging, and for pro-poor, pro-environment, climate change friendly alternatives to export-based industrial scale logging. The grant is for two specific forest projects.
Following up our Independent Forest Monitoring mission in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
As DRC prepares to open its natural resources to foreign investment we must ensure, through assessing the performance of the various forest sector actors and the forest sector reform process and carrying out local and international follow-up advocacy work, that its forests are not subjected to whole scale industrial logging which presents a huge threat to an important area of rainforest and the populations who depend on it, and has the potential to become a major source of corruption.
Honduras 'Governance Failure' Report and Follow-up
As we continue to support the Honduran Commission for Human Rights (www.conadeh.hn) in implementing Independent Forest Monitoring, we want to follow up a particular example of illegal logging and subsequent forest governance failure in the Rio Platano Reserve which provides lessons for the country’s wider forest sector, and in so doing make a case for the government to end impunity in the sector, increase transparency and ensure equitable management of natural resources. The report will be available in summer 2008 at http://www.globalwitness.org/pages/en/honduras.html.
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