Corruption killing Bangladesh forests: watchdog

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

DHAKA (AFP) — Bangladesh's jungles, including the world's largest mangrove forest the Sunderbans, are being destroyed because of rampant corruption in the nation's forest department, a graft watchdog said Monday.

Transparency International (TI) said in its report that forest officials were engaged in illegal logging worth millions of dollars a year.

Bribery was most evident in the appointment process for top-level jobs. Over the past two decades, forest chiefs have been chosen through an auction system in which the person who paid the biggest bribe landed the job, TI said.

The local branch of the Berlin-based watchdog conducted a 16-month investigation into Bangladesh's forest department. Lead investigator Manzoor-e-Khuda told AFP it was among the most...