For rent: 830,000 hectares of pristine tropical rainforest. Rich in wildlife, including forest elephants and gorillas. Provides a regionally important African green corridor. Price: $1.6m a year. Conservationist owner preferred, but extractive forestry also considered. Please apply to the Cameroonian minister of forestry. That, in essence, is what the government of Cameroon has been offering since 2001 in an attempt to make some money from a forest known as Ngoyla-Mintom. The traditional way would be to lease the land to a logging company. But Joseph Matta, the country's forestry minister, would rather lease it to a conservation group. The trouble is, he cannot find one that is prepared to take it off his hands.
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