Besides the business enterprises in Bandundu province that use small-scale logging permits (PCAs) illegally, there is a national artisanal sector composed of individual chainsaw millers who supply the domestic market and certain neighbouring countries. This sector is still essentially informal.

Our year-long monitoring of markets and transiting points for chainsaw timber brought out the substantial development of this activity over the last 15 years. At present more than a million cubic meters of chainsaw timber are produced in DRC every year, of which 85% is to meet the national demand. The production in Roundwood Equivalents of chainsaw timber – estimated at 3.4 million cubic metres per annum – is 13 times higher than the total formal production of wood products in DRC.

The domestic markets of Kinshasa and eastern DRC generate sales of over 100 millions US dollars per year and yield profits estimated at 25 million dollars. The local populations benefit most from chainsaw milling and receive close to 50 million US dollars per year. As for job creation, the rural and urban artisanal timber production sectors combined offered at least 25 000 direct jobs in the country.