Illegal logging has been a problem in Madagascar for decades and is perpetuated by extreme poverty and government corruption. Often taking the form of selective logging, the trade has been driven by high international demand for expensive, fine-grained lumber such as rosewood and ebony.Zhu, Annah. 2017. "Rosewood Occidentalism and Orientalism in Madagascar." Geoforum Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.08.010 Historically, logging and exporting in Madagascar have been regulated by the Malagasy government, although the logging of rare hardwoods was explicitly banned from protected areas in 2000. Since then, government orders and memos have intermittently alternated between permitting and banning exports of precious woods. The most commonly cited reason for permitting exports is to salvage valuable wood from cyclone damage, although this reasoning has come under heavy scrutiny. This oscillating availability of Malagasy rosewood and other precious woods has created a market of rising and falling prices, allowing traders or "timber barons" to stockpile illegally sourced logs during periodic bans and then flood the market when the trade windows open and prices are high.Anonymous. 2018. "Rosewood democracy in the political forests of Madagascar." Political Geography. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.06.014 Over 350,000 trees were illegally felled in Madagascar between 2010 and 2015, according to TRAFFIC.
History Being characterized by dilapidated infrastructure and inadequate health care and education systems, Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world. With a lack of jobs being created by the formal economy, a large informal economy has developed to accommodate. One of the most significant components of this economy has been illegal logging, particularly of the valuable, dense, hardwoods known as rosewood and ebony.
Rosewood (of the family Leguminosae) generally has a deep, lustrous red coloration, whereas ebony (of the family Ebenaceae) has a dark, heavy fine wood grain. Malagasy rosewoods include Dalbergia baronii, D. louvelii, and the "palissandre wood" D. madagascariensis (which lacks the distinctive red coloration). These rare, endemic species are mainly found in the SAVA Region and the Makira-Masoala Landscape of Madagascar. Although rosewood species from other countries have traditionally been used for high-class musical instruments and furniture, these sources have been depleted, leaving Madagascar as one of the leading sources. Ebony, on the other hand, belongs to the large mostly tropical genus Diospyros. The rare, endemic ebony species of Madagascar grow primarily in the northwestern part of Madagascar, but some also grow in Marojejy and Masoala national parks. Both species are slow growing, and take as much as 300 years or more to reach maturity.
The use of these rare hardwoods by local people is limited and sustainable, unlike the unsustainable exploitation from illegal and government-approved logging for international markets. The logging of rosewoods and ebonies in Madagascar can be traced back more than twenty years prior to the 2009 Malagasy political crisis. Until recently, the island's forests had not experienced the levels of intense logging seen in countries like Malaysia or Indonesia due to its smaller trees, challenging terrain, and national policies favoring locally controlled, small-scale operations. Forestry laws have been in place since at least the 1960s, and commercial logging has been regulated by the state. For decades, artisanal loggers have extracted high-value trees from most remaining forests on the island. Between 1974 and 1980, logging was permitted in the northern section of the Zombitse protected area. In the 1970s, a logging company received permission from the state to selectively harvest precious hardwoods from Ihera Classified Forest, which continued legally until all trees of commercially valuable size had become rare. However, illegal logging began when local leaders manipulated the remaining loggers to continue the extracting on a smaller scale for their own benefit.
The unauthorized logging of these precious woods was banned from sensitive regions (such as national parks) and their adjoining areas in November 2000 with the passing of Order 12704/2000. The law was subsequently amended repeatedly, with orders and memorandums oscillating between permission and bans for the export of logs, semi-finished wood (i.e. planks), and/or finished wood (i.e. furniture), and one, Inter-ministerial Order 16030/2006 (September 2006), reiterating the explicit ban on logging. Conservation groups challenged that none of these held precedence over the original order in 2000, but merely "lend a pretext of legality" to the export of illegally logged precious woods, and view all recent logging and exports as criminal offenses. So far, operators have only been fined, wood has rarely been confiscated, exports have been permitted, and logging has accelerated, especially near the end of the decade.
Hardwoods are still being harvested from protected areas across the island and exported from most of Madagascar's ports. The most significant activity has been occurring in the SAVA Region, and particularly in Masoala National Park and the eastern and northeastern portions of Marojejy National Park—both part of the Rainforests of the Atsinanana, a World Heritage Site. The terrain in both parks is very rugged, and with only one park ranger per , it is impossible to fend off the loggers. The parks are being targeted because all the rare rosewoods and ebonies outside of Masoala and Marojejy national parks have already been logged.
Thousands of workers may be involved in the logging and transporting, especially since the 2009 political crisis, yet the logging and export is orchestrated by only a few dozen powerful "Timber Barons," a group of exporters who are some of the wealthiest Malagasy citizens and therefore strongly influence regional and national politics. These include, but are not limited to: Jeannot Ranjanoro, president of the National Group of Vanilla Exporters Eugene Sam Som Miock, Madagascar's largest lychee exporter Jean Paul Rakoto, who has ties to former President Didier Ratsiraka Martin Bematana, a former member of parliament Christian Claude Bezokiny, owner of the Hôtel Hazovola in Antalaha
These exporters are supplied by a regional network of collectors and sub collectors, which procures the wood and transports it from the protected forests to the nearest major port, all through the paid labor of teams of young local men who receive between 5,000 and 10,000 ariary, or around US$2.50 to $5.00 per day. This income, which is sometimes not paid, is equivalent to less than 2% of the export value of the logs they cut and transport. A report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Global Witness estimated that 200 rosewood trees were being cut down a day in 2009. With prices at around $3000 per cubic meter or $11 per kilogram, the wood was worth nearly ten times as much as oak or maple.
The work is done with hand axes and rope, often in remote corners of the forest. The trees are felled and cut into logs, or bola-bola, and dragged for miles to the nearest river, where they are tied into bundles and floated downstream on rafts made of four or five lighter logs. From there, they are transported by truck to a nearby port, such as Antalaha and Vohémar. The work is strenuous and very dangerous. Once out of the parks, the logs are transported to open yards or hidden locations in and around Antalaha and Vohémar. Sometimes logs are hidden beneath vanilla or buried under gardens, houses, beaches, or in riverbeds. In October 2009, a cache of rosewood was discovered during a raid of Tiko headquarters, a company owned by former president Marc Ravalomanana.
Local poverty and the extremely high value of rosewood have driven the local people to violate their local fady (taboos), by cutting down these trees they hold to be sacred. The deputy director of Prevention at the Independent Anti-Corruption Office (BIANCO) cites the sharp fall of vanilla prices in mid-2008 (the local cash crop fell from $230 per kilo to $25 per kilo between 2003 and 2005.), the cutting of conservation funding following the political coup in January 2009, and an increased interest in rosewood from mostly Chinese buyers as major factors behind the explosive surge in illegal harvesting of rosewoods. He reported that before this, in 2008, the illegal logging and export of rosewood had been halted.
Cyclical exports and cyclone damage Following the bans in 2000 and 2006, exports were restricted to finished or semi-finished products, such as handicrafts. However, exceptions have been made following cyclones that frequently ravage the island's east coast. The export of trees felled by cyclones is permitted, opening a loophole since the government never inventories downed trees. Thus, the timber barons export logs that have been harvested previously, claiming they were a result of storm damage—a technique historically employed by loggers in the United States and elsewhere. The high density of rosewood prevents them from blowing over in cyclones, leading environmental activists to believe the only purpose is to facilitate illegal logging.
Inter-ministerial Order 17939/2004 was passed in September 2004, following Cyclone Gafilo in March, which cleared the way for export of new and existing stocks of rosewood as "salvage." This created anarchy in the national parks in the SAVA Region, with loggers extracting a large amounts of rosewood and ebony, grossly disproportionate to the amount of damage caused by the cyclone. During this time, Marojejy National Park reported that with the granting of export rights, logging in the park had resumed. It wasn't until 2006, with the passing of Inter-ministerial Order 16030/2006, that the export ban was reinstated, nearly two years after the storm, but not before the exporters lobbied the government for an extension "following the grievances expressed by operators" in October 2005, per Memorandum 923/05. Exports were also authorized following cyclones in 2006 and 2007, encouraging the stockpiling of large quantities of lumber in both legal depots and hidden caches around the ports of Vohémar and Antalaha.
These oscillating bans and authorizations for export have created wave-like market of rising and falling prices for rosewood. During times of stricter control, prices rise considerably while illegally harvested wood is stockpiled in anticipation of future authorizations. When restrictions are removed, large quantities of rosewood are dumped on the market, bringing massive profits for traders before causing a rapid fall in prices. During the intervals between exports, the wood traders, who are also vanilla traders, use the relatively steady income from vanilla exports to fund the extraction of the illegal wood.
Cyclones have precipitated illegal rosewood logging in other ways. When Cyclone Hudah hit the island in April 2000, affecting 50,000 people, it exacerbated local poverty. Its devastating effects, later coupled with the downturn in the vanilla market, drove the local people to increase their slash and burn agriculture (called tavy), the use of bushmeat, and the logging of precious hardwoods.
Effects of the 2009 political crisis