The plunder of Madagascar’s forests
The over-harvesting of timber, illegal logging and weak governance are decimating Madagascar’s forests. With the 19th Conference of the Parties (CoP19) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) underway in Panama, WWF supports maintaining a trade moratorium for rosewoods, palisanders and ebonies until Madagascar is able to account for the quantity and origin of the huge stockpiles that accumulated before the species came under CITES controls a decade ago.
The group of trees known as rosewoods (Dalbergia spp.) includes many species valued for hundreds of years for use in the manufacture of furniture and musical instruments. This is because the heartwood is deeply coloured — usually a beautiful dark red, and is especially durable. China, in particular, has a long tradition of crafting furniture from this wood. Formerly only the elite could afford such pieces. However, as with shark fin, ivory and many other wildlife products, the country’s growing middle class aspires to own or gift them. Similarly, ebonies (Diospyros spp.) produce dense, heavy, black or near-black timber, also valued for high end uses.
Madagascar, one of the world’s centres of endemism, is famous for its lemurs — a group of primates found nowhere else in the world — as well as its many endemic reptile and amphibian species, including tortoises, chameleons, geckos and brightly coloured frogs, not to mention unique species of orchids and succulent plants. Especially in the northeast of the country, its forests are home to many endemic species of ebonies and rosewoods, as well as a group of Dalbergias known as palisanders. The forests in this part of the island have been designated as a World Heritage Site, known as the Rainforests of the Atsinanana, under the UNESCO Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, commonly known as the World Heritage Convention.
Unfortunately, extreme poverty and weak governance have driven massive over-exploitation of the island’s natural resources. Collectors have sought its unique animals and plants, so that many are now critically endangered by international trade. Many are banned in international trade but illegal trade is rampant.
Similarly, the illegal logging of rosewoods, palisanders and ebonies from Madagascar’s forests has been a running sore for decades. However, it reached crisis levels during and after the political turmoil in 2009, when a coup d’état led to several months of unrest and instability. TRAFFIC has argued that this epidemic of illegal logging has ushered in many social ills, with the influx of cash leading to a steep increase in violent crime and increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases, often fuelled by increased alcohol consumption. Safety precautions are absent, leading to many accidental deaths. In the meantime, tourist revenue has collapsed and traditional economic activities, including subsistence agriculture (the region was once almost self-sufficient in food), have suffered. There has been increased poaching, including of lemurs, both for the pet trade and as food for the loggers, and the downstream consequences include siltation of rivers and damage to coral reefs.
In 2012, the international community responded to the crisis by encouraging Madagascar to propose listing all of its rosewood and ebony populations on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Such a listing requires that the species in question, including commonly exported parts and derivatives, such as logs and sawn timber, be accompanied by export permits. These permits can only be issued when:
- The authorities are satisfied that the goods being exported were legally obtained; and
- There is independent scientific advice that the level of exports does not pose a threat to the survival of the species, a process known as a non-detriment finding.
The sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the Convention in 2013 adopted this listing, together with a management plan that provided for accompanying measures, including:
- Development of identification materials for the different species;
- Perform non-detriment findings for each of the species in trade;
- Strengthen Madagascar’s forest governance capacities; and
- Audit and secure existing stockpiles of felled timber with a view to establishing legality of acquisition.
Crucially, it was agreed that no exports of timber should be permitted until the above mentioned audit was completed.
Significant progress has been made on the development of identification materials, but there are many more species than originally expected and more work needs to be done. The species identification work reflects the fact that, at the technical level, there are many officials in Madagascar who share the concerns of the conservation community on this issue. Progress on the second point has been slower, inevitably, but an EU-funded study is seeking to identify tradable species.
However, little to no progress has been made on the last two points. Efforts to improve forest governance have been sporadic and not fully embraced. While acknowledging that there are logistical obstacles to an audit, since the stockpiles are scattered over many — often remote — locations, TRAFFIC, the CITES Secretariat and many others have developed extensive guidelines over the years to assist Parties in such work and to prevent legally held stockpiles from being topped up with illegal material. Rather, lack of political will and the ability of elites to profit from illegal trade in unverified stocks appear to be the main reasons for the lack of progress. Whatever the reason, illegal exports continued.
In 2014 Singapore made the largest ever seizure of CITES goods by volume, when it seized nearly 30,000 rosewood logs. In the ensuing years the seizure was challenged in the Courts, and an official traveled from Madagascar to testify — falsely — that the shipment was legal. This led to two trials and three appeals, in which, whether the wood had been illegally exported from Madagascar was never an issue. The final judgment rendered in 2019 ordered the wood returned to the shippers. It is still held, pending production by the putative owners’ documents verifying that it may be legally imported at its final destination, (it is unlikely such documents will ever be produced). A seizure was also made in Kenya; again it was challenged in the Courts, again there was no cooperation from the Malagasy government and the final judgment ordered the wood be returned to the shippers based upon a misunderstanding of the CITES status of the wood. This wood is still held by the authorities pending documents as in the Singapore case. A third shipment of nearly 4,000 logs was made in Sri Lanka in 2014; the present status of these logs is unclear.
At a meeting of the Plants Committee of CITES — also in 2014 — it was noted that the stockpiles in Madagascar were “fluid” being removed and replaced from the piles, to quote a CITES Secretariat staff member. This has been corroborated by other reports, including the above mentioned TRAFFIC report. Although there have been no significant seizures since 2014, there is no reason to believe that illegal logging and trafficking have ceased. During stock inventories in 2015, just 10 of the 101 recognized stockpile owners allowed inspection of their stocks; these officially recognized stockpiles represent just about a third of those known to exist.
In subsequent years, despite not making any progress on the audit, Madagascar made attempts to be allowed to export at least some of the timber, ostensibly in order to fund the audit. This was rejected by the Standing Committee of CITES, and, indeed, it would have been in breach of the Convention as it would have been impossible to determine that the timber was legally acquired. This year, somewhat controversially without the benefit of a working group and with little discussion, the Standing Committee forwarded a decision to the CoP which would remove some of the wood from CITES jurisdiction on the basis that the wood is supposed to be used for construction or refurbishment of governmental buildings or to be used by artisans to make handicrafts weighing no more than 10 kg to be sold only to domestic tourists. The proposal contains no procedures to track the timber or ensure that the handicrafts will not be exported. Neither are there any provisions to ensure that logs from undeclared or hidden stockpiles or even freshly cut trees will not be used. This decision is up for review at the November CoP.
The audit and securing the logs is essential, not merely to comply with the letter of CITES, but also because there has been a breakdown of trust in the authorities, and repeated allegations of complicity in illegal logging and trafficking. On the one hand, the progress made with the development of identification materials and other technical matters is evidence that there are many in the authorities that want to do the right thing. On the other hand, the imprisonment or exile of Environmental Human Rights defenders, such as Clovis Razafimalala, who have raised questions about the illegal timber trade, issue, the official testimony in the Singapore case, not to mention Madagascar’s poor corruption rating (it is ranked 123rd of 168 countries surveyed by Transparency International), all contribute to the current lack of trust.
The resulting situation is a major test for international environmental governance and whether CITES has all of the resources it needs to control trade that is detrimental to the survival of species. The illegal logging, and the associated poaching of lemurs and other species, has led to the Rainforests of the Atsinanana being listed as a World Heritage Site in Danger under the World Heritage Convention. However, ultimately CITES is the international legal instrument that must take responsibility for the issue, and CITES Parties must act to make sure Madagascar is given the resources, expertise and finances to fully implement the Action Plan; and CITES Parties take action to 1) help Singapore and Kenya come up with disposal plans for their seizures that do not increase demand or have a detrimental impact on the species and 2) provide the authority and resources so that the CITES Secretariat can aid in the prosecution of seizures of CITES listed animals, plants or their parts so that criminal syndicates trafficking rare and endangered species face similar penalties to drug, gun or human trafficking.
This tragic situation will come up for discussion at the next (nineteenth) CITES CoP in Panama city, in November. At that meeting, the Parties to the Convention must lay down the following conditions:
- No timber can be exported without first being audited independently and secured, its legality of origin being verified, and a non-detriment finding being made and it is secured so that no logs can be added to the stockpiles;
- The expertise, resources and finances needed to fully implement the 2013 Action Plan must be made available to Madagascar as a priority;
- Singapore and Kenya should be encouraged to take legal actions to confiscate the wood from the 2014 seizures and CITES should create a disposal plan for these logs that does not create an increase in demand and is not detrimental to the survival of the species;
- If these conditions are met, any export of logs from the stockpiles in Madagascar or the seized logs in Singapore and Kenya must be subject to oversight by an independent international body, the Secretariat of CITES being the most appropriate (there is a precedent for this, in that the Secretariat oversaw a one-off export of ivory stockpiles from four African countries in 2009).
If we are to restore the forests of north-eastern Madagascar to their former glory we will have to start by building on the hard work being done at the technical level by Malagasy scientists and others, in developing identification materials and working towards a non-detriment finding. However, much more work will have to be done on the ground. However, higher High level officials levels in the Government of Madagascar will have to demonstrate commitment and win back the trust of the international community. CITES can take the first step in creating the enabling conditions for this to happen.
By Colman O Criodain, Head of Policy, WWF Wildlife Practice
