Banjul, The Gambia — On a warm May day at a dining establishment on the borders of Banjul, Lamin (surname kept) described his strategy to traffic rosewood wood from Senegal to The Gambia as he cleaned up the meat off his chicken drumsticks.
“All of this needs to be secret,” he whispered, attempting to be assuring about his nearly decade-long experience in the illegal trade.
“Things have actually got harder just recently, however it’s possible if you have the best contacts.”
For years, wood has actually been smuggled by guys like him from southern Senegal’s Casamance area into The Gambia to then be delivered to China. Among the most popular types is rosewood. Clinically referred to as pterocarpus erinaceus, the crimson-coloured wood remains in high need by Chinese furnishings makers.
In 2012, the West African rosewood tree was formally categorized as being on the edge of termination in The Gambia. The nation, along with neighbouring Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, has actually continued to be amongst the main providers of this types to China.
Because June 2022, there has actually been a local restriction on felling, carrying and exporting lumber by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The Gambian federal government likewise set up a restriction that exact same year, however traffickers stated they continue to deal with Chinese businesspeople to smuggle the valuable wood out of Casamance.
From 2017 to 2022 alone, China imported more than 3 million tonnes of rosewood worth a minimum of $2bn from West Africa, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a global NGO.
Al Jazeera spoke with traffickers in The Gambia, impersonating financiers thinking about getting associated with the lumber trade. The traffickers exposed that the trade is still well under method and stated 200 containers packed with the lumber beinged in Banjul’s port, waiting for delivery to China. When grabbed remark, the Gambian federal government stated it was uninformed of the existence of such containers.
Smugglers in Banjul revealed Al Jazeera video footage of individuals packing rosewood logs onto a ship, stating it was a personal vessel utilized solely for rosewood wood exports to China. According to Lamin, a container holds 80 to 90 logs, depending upon their size. The older they are, the larger the area and the better they are. A complete container can bring more than $15,000. According to Lamin, traffickers like him can get up to $1,000 per container.
The procedure of exporting wood through Banjul’s port has actually ended up being harder, according to the traffickers, who stated getting export licenses from authorities is no longer as simple as it was in the past. Personal shipping lines, which utilized to be the primary approach of transportation to China, stopped delivering lumber in 2020.
“There is no chance at the seaport yet,” confessed Secka, among Lamin’s superiors, “however if you are entering into wood trafficking, you are expected to have appropriate contacts in location.”
According to them, well-placed contacts within the port authority help with export treatments, that include authorizations and the deposit of containers, as do the authorities, who can greenlight the release of taken containers in exchange for what Lamin calls “suggestions”. Al Jazeera got in touch with the port authority and Gambian cops however did not get an action.
“You require to understand individuals in the system, a backup in case you get captured,” Secka stated, recommending that authorities are greatly associated with the trafficking.
From Gambia to China
Accompanied by Lamin, Al Jazeera checked out 2 depots in Banjul and its residential areas, both apparently owned by Chinese businesspeople stacking the rosewood lumber till they handle to export it to China.
One depot was filled with lumber while another was empty. At the 2nd area, numerous empty containers were saved, all set to be filled with wood, while rosewood scraps lay spread on the ground beside them.
“I require to run far from the city. Here it’s peaceful,” Lamin stated.
Al Jazeera revealed images of the lumber and the scraps discovered at the 2 areas to professionals who stated, “They quite appear like pterocarpus erinaceus.” Satellite images likewise verified that logs have actually been stacked at the 2 areas over the previous 7 years. As the trafficker left among the depots, a policeman jokingly asked about the location of his wood.
When gotten in touch with about the findings, the Gambian Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources stated it was uninformed of containers with rosewood wood to be delivered to China.
A representative included that “no authorization to export rosewood has actually been provided to any organization of the federal government of The Gambia” and the ministry is not conscious “of 1 cubic centimetre of rosewood getting in the nation”. The CITES Secretariat in Geneva decreased to respond to concerns, mentioning “minimal personnel capability”.
An October 2023 report by the Washington, DC-based EIA verifies Al Jazeera’s findings. An analysis of trade information revealed that the 2022 restriction on rosewood trade has actually slowed it down however has actually not stopped it.
The report kept in mind that the restriction “appeared to activate a rush for exports, in offense of the provisionary suspension that had actually currently been in force for 3 months prior to this notice”, explaining that in July and August of that year, China imported more than 15,000 metric tonnes of rosewood from The Gambia.
Romain Taravella, a private investigator with the EIA, became part of a group whose research study on rosewood trafficking in The Gambia triggered CITES to embrace the local restriction– the strictest up until now. The EIA examination reported that from 2012 to 2020, 1.6 million trees were unlawfully gathered in Casamance and smuggled into The Gambia.
[The Gambia has] never ever been a fan of this local restriction nor a nation that was acknowledging the requirement to have a restriction,” Taravella informed Al Jazeera. The EIA report likewise implicated senior authorities in the federal government of having actually been included with trafficking throughout that time.
Prior to the restriction, the EIA revealed a well-organised system of misdeclaring wood in ports with traffickers incorrectly identifying the containers as peanuts or metal scraps. Once the containers showed up in China, they were regularly stated as rosewood in import information.
Personal shipping lines were the ones formerly moving the lumber to China. When the business stopped such shipments, Taravella discovered that the trade continued even after the restriction entered into result, suggesting the traffickers rapidly adjusted and discovered alternative paths.
“This indicates the system was quite well-oiled because before the restriction,” Taravella stated.
Rosewood import information from China from 2018 to 2023 acquired by Al Jazeera revealed a 43 percent boost in rosewood imports from The Gambia in September in 2015, compared to the very same month of the previous year and a 58 percent boost from pre-pandemic levels for the very same month.
The CITES restriction particularly forbids the exportation and importation of rosewood lumber, which basically prohibits China from accepting rosewood imports. Al Jazeera connected to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for remark however got no action.
‘Conflict tinder’
The majority of the trafficked rosewood originates from the lavish, green Casamance area.
For the Indigenous individuals of Casamance, the area’s trees– especially its rosewood– are thought about spiritual. Haidar el Ali, Senegal’s previous environment minister and among Africa’s best-known conservationists, resides in Casamance and has actually committed his retirement to maintaining its forests.
“The traffic still takes place towards The Gambia, however there’s less rosewood now than previously,” Ali stated, describing that the rosewood stock in Casamance’s border locations with The Gambia has actually been decreasing.
For more than 4 years, a low-intensity dispute in between the Senegalese federal government and the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) has actually afflicted the area, making it the longest-running dispute on the continent.
The MCDF rebels have actually been combating the Senegalese army for self-reliance. The area– which is culturally, linguistically, and ethnically unique from the rest of Senegal– was contributed to the nation’s area after self-reliance from France in 1960.
Border towns in The Gambia like Ballen have lots of refugees who got away Casamance years earlier. The majority of these towns are comprised of Casamancese refugees and Gambian residents, just various by citizenship however not by ethnic culture or language.
In the Gambian town of Kayanga, Fatou Camara was being in her home one day in April in 2015 around lunch break when a bullet permeated a wall and ricocheted into her bed room as shooting was heard in the range.
“We’ve been living this problem for over 40 years,” Fatou stated, including that in 2015 was “more extreme” than the year before. She does not understand if the bullet came from the Senegalese army or the rebels.
Regional reports have stated the unlawful wood trade is a primary income source for the Casamance rebels, moneying the disobedience and making rosewood the name of “dispute tinder” by the EIA and Geneva-based TRIAL International.
Suspicious plans
Regardless of its influence on continuing the disobedience and scary the border population, the trafficking of rosewood has actually long taken advantage of suspicious plans with individuals in high locations.
Under the two-decade period of The Gambia’s previous leader Yahya Jammeh, the unlawful trade with China in addition to trafficking from Casamance reached its peak. Throughout his period, Jammeh apparently made use of the nation’s resources, averted taxes and straight moneyed MFDC rebels through his business Westwood Gambia.
Westwood was the only wood business certified for exports from 2014 to 2017, apparently playing a significant function in the unlawful rosewood trade.
Jammeh was ousted from power in 2017. A year later on, an unique commission established by the brand-new administration carried out an examination into his properties, which exposed that Westwood’s monopoly on lumber exports to China created more than $45m in income throughout its 3 years of operation.
The commission likewise discovered that Jammeh robbed a minimum of $363m in public funds and illegal wood income, however the genuine quantity is thought to be closer to $1bn. To this day, neither Westwood nor Jammeh and his partners have actually dealt with any criminal charges in The Gambia. Jammeh got away to Equatorial Guinea after losing the 2017 election and now lives there in self-imposed exile.
TRIAL International has actually lodged a case with the Swiss attorney general of the United States implicating Jammeh’s partner, Romanian-Swiss business person Nicolae Buzaianu, of dedicating the war criminal offense of pillage.
The charge covers his supposed function in moneying the disobedience in Casamance and making use of Senegal’s resources for individual gain. The Swiss attorney general of the United States’s workplace revealed in 2022 that it had actually opened an examination into Buzaianu’s transactions in The Gambia, even asking for legal support from the Gambian federal government.
When Al Jazeera asked about the status of the examination, the lawyer general’s representative stated there are no existing procedures versus a Swiss resident in that context, not clarifying whether the main examination is yet to start or has actually been ditched.
If the case were to continue, it would mark a substantial turning point in worldwide law since there is no previous circumstances of a conviction for the war criminal activity of pillage. In the meantime, Senegal’s threatened rosewood continues to be trafficked into The Gambia with the criminals getting away responsibility.
“We are being robbed of our future in broad daytime, and we are enjoying it take place,” stated Kemo Fatty, leader of the advocacy group Green Up Gambia.