Yeong has since resigned, and Berjaya pulled out of the Solomons. Guyana's commissioner of forests, Clayton Hall, says bribes are simply a way of life for the logging companies. He says that he is offered a bribe nearly every day he is on the job. Of course, Hall says, he never accepts it. Some of the Asian companies have also been adept at shell games that have allowed them to evade local scrutiny and taxation.
Nobody loves a logger.
The companies and their supporters complain that they are simply easy targets for criticism. Anybody who attains any sort of high profile immediately becomes the whipping boy of environmentalists. The Barama Co. says it is sensitive to environmental concerns and has even hired an environmental group, the Edinburgh Center for Tropical Forests, to monitor its forestry-management practices. Back in Belize, the roar of the bulldozers and the whir of the chainsaws continue unabated. Local forestry experts say that the irresponsible cutting practices are already doing irreparable harm to the rain forest.