For logging companies, price of a rainforest equals salt and sugar

LONDON: Vast tracts of the world's second-largest rainforest have been obtained by a small group of European and American industrial logging companies in return for minimal taxes and gifts of salt, sugar and tools, a two-year investigation by Greenpeace International discloses today.

More than 150 contracts have been signed with 20 companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the past three years. Many are believed to have been illegally allocated in 2002 by a transition government emerging from a decade of civil wars and are in defiance of a World Bank moratorium.

According to the report, the companies, mainly from Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Singapore and the US, are already stripping from the 21 million hectares of forest, primarily to extract African teak.