This is part 5 of a 6-part series
The figures are edifying: 123,000 tonnes, or 4,500 containers, 365,900 logs or 182,900 trees. This is the quantity of rosewood, also known as vène wood or kosso, which was illegally transported from Mali to be processed in Chinese factories between May 2020 and January 2022, according to the International Environment Agency (EIA). This is in violation of a law that has been in force for two years prohibiting its harvesting and exportation and despite its 2017 inclusion on the list of threatened species of the Convention on International Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
As in Casamance, western Cameroon and eastern DRC, the looting of precious wood have flourished as a result of political instability. For more than a decade, this illegal trafficking has spread from country to country in Africa as forests are decimated.
Orchestrated by the Chinese
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