IPRB: Context & Dynamics

Excerpt from "Sold Down the River" by Forests Monitor: "...Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon - all contain large expanses of rainforest that have provided livelihoods, building materials and medicines to millions of forest-dependent peoples. These countries' governments, often under strict structural adjustment and liberalisation policies imposed by multilateral and bilateral creditors, are promoting industrial timber exploitation in most of their forest areas whilst local people have no opportunities to participate meaningfully in deciding how best to use forest resources. Although governments and creditors actively promote transnational private investment in the forestry sector, they have done little to establish a framework for controlling these private interests. Forestry and environment laws, which provide a minimum operating standard, are often unclear and are rarely enforced. This has led to forest policies that, on the one hand, undermine the livelihoods and increase the insecurity of local peoples whilst, on the other, facilitate the dominance of unaccountable corporations..the EU continues to play an important role politically and economically in Central Africa, directly and indirectly shaping forest development and conservation policies. Secondly, EU-based logging companies continue to be significant players in the forestry sector of the region, controlling most of the logging concessions and processing plants and playing an active role in international fora on forest management in the region. Thirdly, the EU continues to be the primary destination for exports of timber products from the region. For these reasons, EU member states, and the multilateral institutions of which they are a part, can and should play a strategic role in establishing sustainable principles by which EU-headquartered companies should operate..."