result, companies from Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Singapore and the US are capitalizing on Congo’s circumstance by moving in to extract African teak from their forests. This is problematic because extraction of African teak could potentially release 34 billion tonnes of carbon. In return, these companies merely offer bags of salt, machetes, bicycles, and promises to build schools to the village chiefs. In fact, the deep-rooted nature of this corruption extends all the way to the World Bank, who are well-aware of the corruption in the logging activities in Congo and are now accused of even encouraging them.

Similarly, the Amazonian rainforests in South America is another significant forested area in our world, which suffers from deforestation activities as a result of corruption. Although the Brazilian government has documented thatthe rate of legal deforestation is decreasing, satellite imaging has shown that the deforestation rate has actually increased by 50 percent from 2004 to 2007. The reason behind this increase in illegal “unofficial” roads is that they are being built by illegal loggers through the rainforest for high financial gain. In fact, these roads are already estimated to cut through 105,000 miles in the Amazonian forest. The Trans-Iriri highway is a primary example of an illegal road that spans hundreds of miles and was built by illegal loggers. As a result, the Brazilian government is having difficulty controlling the rate of illegal deforestation. Some attempts have been made such as designating conservation areas and the implementation of DETEX (a system that detects illegal logging) but these regulations hardly