Zimbabwe hopes to log area larger than the UK

In its recently released report titled 'Branching Out', London-based NGO Global Witness criticises the world's largest logging deal that will, if Zimbabwe raises the capital, enable the government of President Robert Mugabe to harvest 33 million ha of prime rainforest, an area almost 1.5 times the area of the United Kingdom. "Global Witness is very concerned that this highly secret deal could threaten the [DRC] peace process and is yet another example of the way in which natural resources are not only fuelling conflict but undermining an already complex peace process," Patrick Alley, of Global Witness, said. "If Mugabe is serious about the Peace Process he must stop this deal from going through. And if [DRC President] Joseph Kabila is serious about wanting peace in DRC then he must end this dubious deal, in which his father Laurent-Desire Kabila gave away 15 percent of the DRC to the Zimbabwean army." Global Witness reported that Zimbabwe was coming under increasing pressure to make the DRC pay for the costly military intervention Harare provided when rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda launched an offensive from the eastern DRC in August 1998 to topple the elder Kabila. Global Witness further reported that the DRC was singled out by the UN Environment Programme in August as one of 15 countries where international efforts at forest conservation should be focused. "The long-term impacts on people's livelihoods and rare wildlife such as the gorilla will be devastating," Global Witness reported.