Afteer campaigning for years and highlighting the links between timber trade, armed conflicts, corruption and illegality, Global Witness has published a "Forest Sector Transparency Report Card" to highlight best practice in developing countries and expose wrongdoing. The document offers a set of indicators, ranging from the Freedom of Information Act — and Are logging contracts made public?"
The group launched the card and an associated website www.foresttransparency.info a collobarative project with campaign groups in Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and Peru, assesses 70 transparency indicators across 15 themes. Report highlights show that forest sector transparency is generally poor, with very little public access to information. Problems include insecure land and forest tenures, as well as secret mining contracts running roughshod over forest protection measures.