DRC: Concern over logging

Environmental groups have expressed concern at Congo's plans to open up its rainforest for increased commercial logging. The country's government, currently $4.9 billion in debt, has been placing greater emphasis on the growth of the timber industry in the Congo Basin, which has the world's second largest stretches of virgin rainforest after the Amazon in South America. The logging policy has been encouraged by the World Bank - which makes its loans to the government conditional on the forest being opened up.