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In recent years, 'decentralisation' has become an increasingly prominent theme in Sub-Saharan African development theory and practice, particularly around woodland management. Although much research has illuminated challenges arising in project design and implementation, 'external' threats to decentralised resource management initiatives have received little attention. At the same time, however, there has been a massive increase in foreign, particularly Chinese, corporate investment in the extraction of African resources. This paper examines the importance of the interaction between these two trends to local livelihoods and resource management through a case study of illegal logging by Chinese companies in Sierra Leone.[These] companies . . . are not ready to pay any revenue to this country, but only to exploit our resources by connivance, by conniving with our own people because the people are poor. (District Forest Officer) [The loggers] just come, they show us papers, they say this is from government, government tell them to cut down these trees, so we are scared to say no -we are scared! (Village elder)

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