Liberia rainforest: '60% handed to logging companies' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

Uncontrolled logging is posing a risk to Liberia's virgin rainforests and depriving people of economic benefits, campaign group Global Witness warns.

Its report says that logging companies have been granted more than 60% of the country's rainforests in the six years since Nobel Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became president.

It found that use of private contracts which bypass regulations are common.

President Sirleaf has already ordered a investigation into the issue.

She had been praised for revoking corrupt and badly managed logging companies when she took office in 2006, after timber was used to finance arms sales during Liberia's long and bloody civil war.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19469571