ABSTRACT
Corruption, i.e. “the unlawful use of public office for private gain” (Transparency International 2003), is one of the main underlying causes of deforestation and over-harvesting of natural resources (Amacher 2006). Illegal logging represents more than 90 percent of logging in Indonesia (Dudley et al. 1995), 80 percent in Brazil and 90 percent in Cambodia (Winbourne 2002). In Indonesia, logging concessions covering more than half the country’s total forest area were awarded by former President Suharto, many of them to his relatives and political allies (Global Forest Watch, World Resource Institute). In 1995, in Cambodia, the two prime ministers in power at that time gave concessions, contrary to the law, for the remaining parts of tropical forest (Harris White 1996). 1
