Few industries are as murky as the black market in wood. The World Bank estimates that 40% of China's timber imports from Russia -- its largest source -- are illegally harvested. In 2005, Greenpeace investigators chronicled the log trade from Papua New Guinea to China and found that 90% of it was illegal. As Chinese operators push deeper into the forests of Mozambique and other sub-Saharan countries, it's likely that most of that product -- maybe the chair you're sitting in, or the flooring beneath your feet -- is tainted as well. "Most logs imported into China are effectively stolen," says the Smithsonian Institution's William Laurance, one of the world's foremost tropical biologists. For the past year, the U.S. International Trade Commission has been probing China's logging practices (its report is due this month).
Timber is vital for the future of Mozambique's economy, but you wouldn't know it by the assault on its forests, which cover 70% of the nation. Mozambique is now China's leading source for wood in East Africa, and most of this timber leaves the country as raw, unprocessed logs, essentially subtracting its value from one of the world's poorest economies and adding it to what is becoming one of the richest. The best hardwood species are being obliterated, without replanting, and experts predict the forest's commercial value could be lost in as little as five years. Mozambique doesn't even have a functioning plywood industry; meanwhile the wood-products industry in China is skyrocketing, feeding local demand as well as the West's.
A 2006 report funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development describes log exporting from Mozambique as an exploitative "gold rush." And with one cop for every 125,000 acres, local enforcement is a fantasy. "A timber mafia" has arisen, concludes Catherine Ann Mackenzie, a highly regarded forestry expert who has spent months trekking across Mozambique studying the problem. Massive conflicts have arisen between the public duties and private interests of some government officials and party members, she notes. "They manipulate forest regulations, statistics, and technical information; accept bribes; and are personally involved in logging and benefiting from this Chinese takeaway."
Marcelo Mosse, too, is on the front lines, as one of only a handful of investigative reporters in Mozambique. At a meeting in his well-guarded office in Maputo, he holds up a book he co-wrote -- a biography of his friend, investigative reporter Carlos Cardoso, who was murdered in 2000 for prying too deeply into bribery and influence peddling. "We don't have a political will in Mozambique to fight corruption, even though our president says it every time he speaks publicly," Mosse says. "Many Chinese companies come here and don't follow the rules we have in forestry because they have partnerships with ministers and politically connected people."
The Mozambican parliament passed a new anticorruption law in 2004, but there's no sign that anyone has been charged under it. Last year, the country's then -- attorney general insisted to local reporters that there are cases before the courts, but that "it's inelegant" to name those accused. In fact, says Mosse, "You can expose corruption but you won't see any follow-up by judicial institutions. There's been no bribery case investigated or prosecuted."
Most of the country's timber operators own what's called a "simple" license, available only to Mozambican nationals. The $15,000 fee for the license gives them a specific area and a specific amount they can cut per year. But many can't afford the license, let alone pay for equipment and trucks. Enter the Chinese timber buyers, who are all too happy to issue credit for everything, letting Mozambicans front for them. That might be fine if this were as far as the deals went. But basically anything goes in Mozambique: overcutting; mislabeling species before export; undermeasuring; underinvoicing to avoid taxes; bribery of government, customs, and forestry officials.
The trade is sometimes dangerous. Simple license holders "come inside our forest to steal logs," complains Carlos Silva, a top manager of Grupo Madal, one of the country's largest timber operations. Every few months, license holders fight with Modal's guards. Industry reformers have also received threats, among them, Carlos Serra Jr., a forestry expert with the country's Ministry of Justice. By day, Serra trains judges in environmental law; by night, he is an activist, raising awareness of what Chinese loggers and their sponsors are doing. "People from the government are involved, and the private sector, and the political class," he says during an interview at the office of Justiça Ambiental (Environmental Justice), a local NGO. "And they warn you to shut up and don't investigate because there are powerful people in the business whose backs are protected. It's known as costas quentes ['hot back']."
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Recent Comments | 26 Total
May 25, 2008 at 4:59am by Frank Lowe
China buy from everyone, not only from Africa. Australian have been busy digging up what have you all over their continent to sell to china. Similarly American and Canadian gurard their export of agricultural and farm products zealously. They even secretly financed research to smear their competitors from the third world to get ahead.
The real problem in Africa is the meddling of westerners who don't allow the African to learn their lesson one step at a time. while the west took two hundred years to move from savagery and slavery to segregation/apartheid to equal right, they expect the african to change overnight.
The solution in Africa is stop meddling the politic there, stop export of weapons, no smeaky support of agents provocateur. Let them decide where they want to go, anyhow its their continent.
June 3, 2008 at 4:04pm by James Belle
I fear for africa, just as it struggles to recover from the exploitations of colonialism here comes the Chinese to deliver some more exploitation.
June 3, 2008 at 4:54pm by Christopher Scherer
Africa is in a very difficult spot. The need for money, jobs and some sense of security far out ways the fear of losing their natural resources. Hopefully, articles like this can shine a spotlight on the region and call more attention to what is happening there before it is too late. Maybe the will of the UN, the African Union or the Southern African Development Community, all of which Mozambique is a part of, could stem the tide of what appears to be a lopsided trading agreement.
June 4, 2008 at 2:37am by Long Pan
I was a Fast Company subscriber for a year and stopped doing that because of the poor quality of the articles. This one is no exception. There is no solid facts. Simply just a collection of highly biased second hand materials, which have no relation to his personal experience in Africa whatsoever. I don't even bother to comment on his amateur writing.
Fast Company editors, if your goal is to provide trash, congratulations, you are getting there!
June 9, 2008 at 10:28pm by sanch indigo
China Supplies America's demands. America's appetite for inexpensive poor quality products transformed China as the New Colonial Power in Africa. The Chinese are doing exactly what the europeans did, rape africa of her natural resources to develop there our country. Its a cycle the chinese didn't start it , they are just beating the Europeans at their our game. Lets all be socially responsible consumers and investors ,that will solve the problem. Americans cant afford to boycott chinese products, Gas price is out of control, Cheap Chinese goods is all we have left. We cant afford to buy products made in america , thanks to Nixon and Bush. The Flag on White House is made in China , not America. So the cycle will continue until africa saves herself or its natural resources go dry and when that happens there's Mars waiting to be exploited
June 19, 2008 at 4:42pm by Darrick Smith
Long Pan, you shouldn't be commenting on anyone's "amateur writing", given the multiple errors in your post.
September 4, 2008 at 12:58pm by Patrick Keller
Africans are so stupid. Can't they see that history is repeating itself. The same thing that happen during the The Renaissance and the Commercial Revolution of Europe in the 15th-18th centuries is happening again. It is just a repeat of the transatlantic slave trade. Human flesh then was a great resource that outsiders such as Europe and the Middle East were taking advantage of to grow their wealth and power. Now China is taking the rest of what is left of Africa. Africa continues to settle for sin(corruption, greed and violence) as it did before by selling their own people to the Europeans. They need to acquire wisdom, understanding and knowledge unless they perish.
June 5, 2009 at 1:46pm by M Claxton
I have noticed a lot of shrill China bashing in the western press these days. It seems to make western European based people's uptight to see non European descended people getting together , working out deals and approaching their level of development. I remain highly skeptical and suspicious at the emotional manipulation that is implied in these articles. To equate China in Africa and the Chinese with the Euro Americans is really ridiculous. When did China commit a Holocaust like the middle passage? No European descended person can point a finger, and after all of the years of Africa's suffering from this group what does it have to show for it? China is bring some of its money to set Africa up and plug it into the world development chain. That is a good thing.