Untitled - Greenpeace
Untitled - Greenpeace
Untitled - Greenpeace
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54<br />
CARVING UP THE CONGO<br />
©<strong>Greenpeace</strong>/Davison<br />
SODEFOR DEALS WITH<br />
EMPTY WORDS<br />
Sodefor (see page 23) has its operations<br />
headquarters in Nioki in Bandundu Province.<br />
The town is an example of modern industrial<br />
logging’s inability to bring prosperity to the<br />
regions in which it operates.<br />
The example of Sodefor is all the more striking<br />
in that the company’s pre-war predecessor,<br />
the state-owned Forescom (run by Belgian,<br />
then Canadian management) appears to have<br />
been relatively beneficial. Sodefor (Société de<br />
Développement Forestier known to local<br />
inhabitants as ‘Société de Destruction<br />
Forestière’) is now part of the giant<br />
Liechtenstein-based NST group (see<br />
pp82–85), which directly controls some<br />
4.7 million hectares of logging titles in four<br />
DRC provinces. 314<br />
Sodefor is by far the dominant logging<br />
company in Bandundu, with a sawmill base at<br />
Nioki, the only logging town in Bandundu<br />
Province. <strong>Greenpeace</strong> visited the area in<br />
May–June 2006 and January 2007, and was<br />
told that local people have repeatedly<br />
expressed their outrage at Sodefor’s<br />
exploitative attitude.<br />
For example, in an open letter to the Minister<br />
of Environment, people from Nioki, who had<br />
formed a pressure group under the name of<br />
‘SOS Nioki’, complained about the company’s<br />
disappointing social record:<br />
‘The forests of Mai-Ndombé are exploited for<br />
the self-interested profit of Sodefor and its sister<br />
company Soforma … This exploitation generates<br />
a huge turnover … and makes a dismal contrast<br />
with the economic and social conditions of the<br />
populace of Mai-Ndombé district … where there<br />
is no sign of any recompense for the wealth<br />
extracted from its land.