EIA: Illegal transports of rosewood logs from Nigeria to China

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EIA/Fordaq
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Over 1.4 million illegal rosewood logs from Nigeria, worth US$300 million, were illegally transported into China. According to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), over US$1 million was paid to top Nigerian officials to release the wood stopped by Chinese authorities.

Thousands of permits were ultimately signed by the then Minister of Environment, Mrs. Amina J. Mohammed, who currently serves as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN).

The results of a two-year investigation by EIA, The Rosewood Racket, details the journey of illegal African rosewood, also known as “kosso,” from the remote forests of Nigeria beset by illegal logging to luxury furniture boutiques in China, despite protections placed on this threatened tree species by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Over the past five years, the exploding Chinese demand for kosso has triggered a series of “boom-and-bust” cycles that led to the depletion of forests across West African nations. In most of the countries, kosso has been illegally logged in violation of harvest and log export bans, including in protected areas.

The boom began in Gambia and Benin, but as the supply in those countries was exhausted in just a few short years, the Chinese traders rapidly moved on through other countries in the region before settling on the one offering the largest untapped resources – Nigeria.

Since 2013, Nigeria has been transformed from a net importer into the world’s largest exporter of rosewood logs, and is to date one of the top wood exporters on the continent, says EIA.

Alexander von Bismarck, EIA Executive Director, explains “As a legally binding treaty ratified by nearly all members of the United Nations, CITES can play a critical role in protecting endangered trees and fragile forests. The international community needs to urgently bring transparency to the CITES permitting process in order to fight the organized criminals that profit from the extinction of endangered species.”

EIA investigators found that Mrs. Mohammed signed thousands of retroactive CITES permits in January 2017 as one of her last acts as Minister of Environment, and just before she was sworn in as the Deputy Secretary-General to the UN. The permits where used by Chinese importers to release over 1.4 million illegal logs that had been detained at the Chinese border for months, after having left Nigeria in violation of both Nigerian law and international CITES obligations.

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