Rainforest Traded for Beer

Despite a 2002 moratorium on new logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over 15 million hectares, or approximately 37 million acres of rainforest has been handed over for logging by Congolese village chiefs in the last 3 years. In exchange for "logging rights" many communities and villages were simply paid in sugar, salt, machetes and beer; even though the African teak contained in each tract can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change compiled by British Economist Sir Nicholas Stern for the British government, estimates that 18 percent of greenhouse emissions are due to the effects of deforestation, which worldwide accounts for more than transportation emissions.