Mozambique: illicit trade in ‘conflict timber’ smuggled to China funds insurgency, EIA warns

Timber smuggling, estimated to be worth $23 million a year, from Mozambique’s ancient forests to China is helping to fund the country’s Islamic-State linked militants operating in its northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, according to a new report by Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA),
A multi-year investigation by the NGO, which campaigns against alleged environmental crime, has found that since 2017 an average of over 500,000 tons per year of timber has been exported from Mozambique to China in violation of the country’s log export ban, and a portion of this trade also fund the brutal Islamist insurgency as well as a large criminal network. According to the EIA report, the laundering of this illegal and conflict timber is made possible by systemic corrupt practices in the timber sector, while the transport between Mozambique and China relies on insufficient due diligence from global shipping lines. This illicit trade in Mozambique rosewood, a tropical hardwood that is highly prized for luxury furniture in China, is protected under an international treaty, meaning only very limited trade that does not threaten the species is allowed.
Most of that trade is in the form of unprocessed logs, more than 90% of which are exported to China, carried by global shipping lines, all in violation of Mozambique’s log export ban, the report says. EIA also found that Chinese traders purchase “conflict timber” for export from Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jamaah (ASWJ) insurgents that have since 2017 occupied Cabo Delgado, terrorizing the population and trafficking in timber, among other illicit goods, to finance their activities. Mozambique is on the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gray list due to the high risk of money laundering from wildlife trade and terrorist financing. Therefore, EIA urges Mozambique’s government to commit more resources to forest governance and transparency in the timber trade sector, calls on global shipping lines to cease transporting illegal timber from the African country, and on China to cease importing it.