Disappearing Trees
Rosewood
Rosewood–– an exotic hardwood timber–– is the most illegally trafficked wildlife species internationally. A peculiar feature of this tree is the red sap it bleeds when cut down. That distinction, however, is not the appeal that has led to trafficked Rosewood as a billion dollar industry commodity. The Rosewood trees’ use as furniture is the value illegal loggers bank on as the demand for luxury furniture in China increases.
Where is this happening?
In countries in Africa including Senegal and Nigeria, the Rosewood Tree grows although it too is a species found in Central America and Asia. The Rosewood depletion has been so high in other regions African nations now became the extracted land homing this exotic hardwood timber. This highly trafficked wood ends its extraction in luxury furniture retailers in China.
The trees themselves are typically not always exported through the nation they grow in. Rosewood that grows in Senegal becomes exported as a Gambian product, while Rosewood in Nigeria is exported through its city Lagos. Both make their way to China or Vietnam by use of shipping containers to furniture processing hubs. From being brought through forest to through importers-exporters to furniture manufacturers.
Why?
Despite international protection under the convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the illegal trade
continues.
The loggers themselves are not to be burdened with the entire blame for
the environmental destruction when their means to income is dependent on
the capitalist labor systems that have determined African nations too many
times to be a location for resources and labor exploitation. Colonial
histories show the extraction of resources have left these nations on the
periphery of globalizations The supply chain beginning to place African
economies in periphery the the Global North’s need have made it
dependent on being the periphery and continues to underdeveloped the nation’s. Escaping this positionality is dependent on developing more industries that do not limit these nation’s as a place for global resource extraction.
Initially there were illegal permits used to smuggle wood into China. Illegal documentation is poorly oversaw, even the logging of trees in countries that too have deemed the action illegal are typically left unchecked.
Organizations like the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) have worked to investigate how a high value timber protected under CITES was still able to be trafficked. During 2016 West African nations looked to CITES to help prevent this international trade.
CITES It is an international agreement between governments to ensure the trade of wildlife does not lead to their extinction.
Government complicity allows for the exportation to continue with the continuation of illegal documentation being issued to allow consequences to be applied to traffickers. In Nigeria alone, EIA has determined at least 400 CITES documents were issued in retrospective
Who?
Previous Minister of Environment of Nigeria, Mrs. Amina J. Mohammed, who now resides as the current UN Deputy Secretary-General has signed permits that have allowed a bypassing of shipping containers containing Rosewood which still are used despite many being signed the day she left office before joining the United Nations.
Previous Gambian President Yahya Jammeh in relation to his partnered company WestWood Ltd.,
The supply chain of these trees includes multiple parties including Lamin Sidykhan who handled freight handling in WestWood undermining the protection CITES issued.
According to EIA Chinese exporters and merchants have bribed political officials to further allow complacency to the market Rosewood that they benefit from.
