By David Lewis
Congo - Parked neatly side by side in a quiet clearing in the heart of Africa's largest rain forest, the two bright yellow bulldozers look absurdly out of place.
Yet they do not attract the slightest attention. They have been there for more than five years, abandoned since the latest in a string of wars broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and are ignored by dozens of tiny, barefoot, half-naked children.
A mechanic in blue overalls tinkers with the unused engines in the evening light, making local village head Bwenge La fear the return of the loggers who left them behind.
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Activists say Cameroon has been unable to police its forestry laws "The loggers brought these here to start work but before they could go anywhere, there was the war, so they have not moved. But the people have come to repair the machines so they will soon cut the trees," he said.
"I've seen what they have done elsewhere, so I wonder what we will really get out of this. They haven't even paid me to protect these machines during the war," said La, head of Yayolo in Congo's north-west Equateur province.
As Congo tries to consolidate peace after a five-year war, the government, private companies and foreign donors are all keen to find ways of tapping into the vast resources of timber in Africa's third-largest country.
With nearly 90 million hectares of woodland, it has the world's second largest rain forest, half of Africa's total.
A new forestry code aimed at regulating the timber business to the benefit of Congo's government and people rather than just the businesses involved is in the process of being implemented.
'We have asked the loggers to build a school and a hospital' In theory, the code passed in 2002 should ensure that civil society and local populations have a say in how Congo's forests are carved up.
Logging concessions will be distributed by public auctions and 40 percent of the revenue earned by the government must be returned to the communities whose trees were felled.
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