illegal logging in madagascar - reportage by getty …...vohemar, madagascar - august 17, 2009:...

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Madagascar hosts incredibly diverse geography, climate and some of the world's rarest wildlife within its primary forests.In February 2009, Madagascar’s coup d’état saw a new government take control. Cracks are quickly developing in infrastructure and corruption is on the rise. Madagascar as an island depends on the import and export of goods, but since the coup trade sanctions from the West have been applied, and foreign NGO’s have nearly all left.Massive slash and burn deforestation throughout the 20th century gave sufficient cause to apply UNESCO protective status to the remaining primary forests of Madagascar. However, within days of the recent political upheaval, park rangers at Marojejy National Park, popular with eco-tourists, were overrun by organized armed militia who quickly targeted its valuable rosewood.

IllegalLogging inMadagascar

Photographs & textby Toby Smith

MASOALA NATIONAL PARK, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 21, 2009: A Malagasi worker swings his axe at a precious rosewood tree, causing the red/pink core to fragment outwards. Despite its enormous sales value, each worker is paid less than USD $4 per day. Most are local villagers from the surrounding area with little experience in forestry. Injuries are common and much of the wood is wasted during extraction.


Rosewood, genus Dalbergia, is close to being assigned CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) protective status, and is found only at 400-1000m altitude, in specific habitats. Trees between 100 and 300 years old have an incredibly dense core weighing 1.5 times more than oak per cubic metre, with great tensile strength. These structural qualities, and the beautifully dark pink to blood-red rose colouring, make it a premium material for Asian furniture and handicrafts. Its sonorous qualities and colouring also make it a very sought after material for exclusive musical instruments in Europe and the US.

MASOALA NATIONAL PARK, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 21, 2009: A Malagasi worker swings his axe at a precious rosewood tree, exposing its valuable red/pink core. Despite its enormous sales value, each worker is paid less than USD $4 per day. Most are local villagers from the surrounding area with little experience in forestry. Injuries are common and much of the wood is wasted during extraction.


Masoala National Park is an extensive remote area of forest in the North East of Madagascar. Much of its area is yet to be biologically researched, and infrastructure is almost non-existent. With the lure of cash wages beyond their normal means, local people have created logging camps along its rivers and valleys. Using the most basic of tools with zero mechanisation, precious timber is extracted by any means possible, before making the journey to the depots of the six traders that control this region.

MASOALA NATIONAL PARK, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 21, 2009: A loggers camp on a riverbank in the Masoala National Park. Rosewood logs are strapped to lighter timber to make a floating raft. Each rosewood log results in over 6 others trees being felled, along with creepers to be used as rope to bind it all together. These makeshift rafts often disintegrate at bends in the river or rapids, requiring new timber to then be cut and tied together. Teams of young men also wait to extract trapped timber along the way, often at great personal risk.


Rice and provisions travel against the flow of timber. Each encampment is a scruffy Wild West exchange, with neighbouring small traditional villages often overrun by temporary stalls, tents, casinos and brothels. Makeshift pharmacies also sell counterfeit Chinese antibiotics to the new population of the forest.

MASOALA NATIONAL PARK, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 20, 2009: A market trader sells counterfeit Chinese drugs deep at the loggers camp. Isolated from towns and villages injuries and disease are common among the workers. These medicines are certainly counterfeit antibiotics and painkillers sold by colour with no packaging or instructions.

MASOALA NATIONAL PARK, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 20, 2009: A loggers camp. Although they only receive a fraction of the profits from the illegal logging trade, it still offers them a greater income than their traditional daily jobs, so is an attractive proposition. Isolated from towns and villages, injuries and disease are common among the workers.

Porters carry rice and food upstream to the logging encampments. Pressure on the forest resources mean that birds and lemurs are often used for bushmeat. The high volumer of porters can destroy habitats as paths erode.

MASOALA NATIONAL PARK, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 18, 2009: Rosewood logs at a loggers camp, awaiting onward transport further downstream.


Each tree is felled by hand axe, before being cut into 2.5m lengths and stripped to the valuable core. Teams of between two and six men arduously haul the lengths through the thick jungle and along streams, until deeper water is reached. Quickly sinking in water, rosewood logs require bamboo and lighter timber to be bound to them, before being rafted further downstream. Each rosewood log results in six or more other trees being felled, along with creepers to be used as rope to bind it all together. These makeshift rafts often disintegrate at bends in the river or rapids, requiring new timber to then be cut and tied together. This process therefore causes further deforestation.

In the shallow water each raft is dragged, pulled and steered for over 5 hours towards the Indian Ocean. Teams of young men wait at the worst cascades to help extract rafts and logs that become trapped or destroyed by the rapids. Such dangerous works results in many broken limbs and serious injuries.

MASOALA NATIONAL PARK, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 21, 2009: A team of young men drag a rosewood log from the site where it was cut down to the rafting encampments further downstream. The logs are dragged 1m at a time in teams of 4 or 5 people, for up to 6km along the beds of small streams. The work is extremely physical and songs are chanted to help with the timing of each movement. Injuries to limbs are very common. The rosewood logs are then strapped to lighter timber to make a floating raft. Each rosewood log results in over 6 others trees being felled, along with creepers to be used as rope to bind it all together. These makeshift rafts often disintegrate at bends in the river or rapids, requiring new timber to then be cut and tied together. Teams of young men also wait to extract trapped timber along the way, often at great personal risk.

At such point where the water becomes deep enough to be navigable, the rosewood is stripped of its raft and loaded onto traditional pirogue canoes. It is a further 4 hours downstream before the river meets a road along which tractors and trailers can drive. Rosewood also arrives from even more remote estuaries by small seafaring boats.

MASOALA NATIONAL PARK, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 20, 2009: Rosewood logs are strapped to lighter timber to make a floating raft. Each rosewood log results in over 6 others trees being felled, along with creepers to be used as rope to bind it all together. These makeshift rafts often disintegrate at bends in the river or rapids, requiring new timber to then be cut and tied together.

MASOALA PENINSULA, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 18, 2009: A 'taxi brousse' (meaning bush taxi) transports rosewood along the rough track bordering the coast, leading to Antalaha. These vans and lorries normally ferry people and goods, but receive more for the timber traffic, thus denying locals transport.



Once it has reached Antalaha in the south, rosewood is stockpiled in various depots, awaiting containerisation and international export from the tiny port of Vohemar. In May, containers destined for China were seized as a token gesture of control by the current government. Inevitably, after payment, these containers will find their way to foreign markets, before the surrounding depots resupply the tiny port.The local gendarmerie and officials are either corrupt or powerless to stop the flow of timber across the country, and beyond. Madagascar National Park employees that have attempted to stand against or document the logging have been subjected to intimidation and physical violence.Chinese benefactors fund the local traders. Only a fraction of the wood is processed on Madagascan soil, ensuring that the price paid per length is rock bottom at export, and few locally really benefit from the industry. Only a fraction of the money makes its way to the Malagasy labourers, who are promised payment only when containers leave the port. The local people are therefore left exploited for their labour, and forced to destroy their own natural resources.With a justice and enforcement system illicitly devoted to ensuring this trade continues, pressure from outside Madagascar must be exerted to deflate the market and stem the supply. Recent amendments to the Lacey Act in the US now, specifically relating to plants and plant products, enable international traders of endangered species to be prosecuted on US soil for the first time. Amendments of the CITES list to include rosewood could also see any connected EU business be recipients of fines and public pressure.

AMPANEFANA, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 16, 2009: Rabe Timoleon Sambava, Chef de Triage Forestier (meaning 'chief of forestry ministry') poses with illegal rosewood stock. He personally authorizes the storage, trade and transport of illegal rosewood for the region, claiming the timber he trades was felled by the cyclone of 2002, yet later contradicting himself upon interview. Although employed by the region, he certainly appears to be profiteering from his position and making no effort to stem the trade.

VOHEMAR, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 17, 2009: Illegal rosewood fills many containers in the port town of Vohemar. Each container can hold between 150-250 logs and is destined for China, and in some cases Europe. Although the government issued a blockage on the port, the local traders only need to pay a token fine to enable it to be exported.

Small seafaring boats transport rosewood from across the Masoala peninsula. The boats land the wood on the beaches south of Antalaha by the cover of night, from where it is removed.

Illegal rosewood fills a container in the port town of Vohemar. Each container can hold between 150-250 logs and is destined for China, and in some cases Europe.


VOHEMAR, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 17, 2009: A rosewood depot on the outskirts of the port town of Vohemar. The tiny port of Vohemar is full with containers waiting for export to China and other destinations. Traders stockpile wood along the coast waiting for shipments to leave before restocking the port. This depot, owned by Mrs. 'Kara' Chan Hoylane, was estimated to have over 2000 logs in it.


Photographer Toby Smith first visited Madagascar independently in May 2009 to produce a photographic essay depicting the nation in the shadow of a new regime. Upon travelling to the East coast, evidence of the coup remained in the persistent and growing traffic of rosewood. On August 8th, KFW bank, in conjunction with Madagascar National Parks, commissioned EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency) and Global Witness to produce an official report into illegal rosewood logging and trade. Toby accompanied the mission to provide photographic and video evidence of the findings. It also gave him the opportunity to explore the remote areas of Masoala peninsula, at the heart of the logging.The subsequent documents, images and video produced from the investigation are at the evidential heart of US authority and Interpol investigation into the illicit global trade of Malagasy rosewood and ebony. The investigation revealed documents tracing rosewood to Germany, and ebony to US manufacturers. The combined gathering of evidence included financial statements from European-owned banks, shipping and cargo manifests and, critically, GPS images pinpointing the wood’s origin within National Parks.Under pressure from these findings, shipments have been embargoed at the ports of Mauritius and La Reunion, and two of the key international shipping companies have washed their hands of shipments containing Malagasy timber. It does seem clear that this problem cannot be solved on Malagasy soil alone. Powerful traders, and corruption extending throughout the customs system, ensure that wood will continue to be felled and moved through Madagascar, with only small fines applied.

SAMBAVA, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 18, 2009: Abdillah, the 'Chef de Region' (regional head) for the Sava region. He is effectively the most important figure in the North-Eastern region, and able to act autonomously from central government by controlling the local gendarmerie. Although under interview he opposed the illegal rosewood trade, he is actually implicated in the trade and allegedly receives gifts of whole containers of wood as payment. It is also though the the Gendarmerie may act as collectors of his taxes.

ANTALAHA, MADAGASCAR - OCTOBER 17, 2009: Roger Thuman (C), a Malagasi trader of prescious timber, disembarks from a plane that has arrived in Antalaha, in the Sava region. He is alleged to be the main player in the illegal rosewood trade leaving the northeast coast for importers based in China, Europe and the US. He has been imprisioned several times but the weaknesses of the Malagasi legal system, and the strength of his finances, have ensured no significant long term effects on him or the illegal trade. The third person disembarking the place is Sascha von Bismarck from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

A formal discussion between Reiner Tegtmeyer and Adam Kherouri of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) with members of the Malagasi Ministry.

Photographer Toby Smith records the GPS coordinates of felled rosewood stumps in the national park. All the sites of illegal logging are added to a GIS system to attempt to assess the damage.

It is therefore the intention and efforts of EIA to use evidence and video gathered to prosecute those responsible for creating the international market outside of Madagascar.On a 3rd trip to Madagascar, a team consisting of Sascha Von Bismarck and Adam Khedouri (both of EIA) and photographer Toby Smith returned for the third time, substantiating the external evidence of illegal ebony entering the US market. This evidence was obtained by working from deep within the industry in Madagascar, posing undercover as timber traders seeking to establish new trading routes to Europe and the US. Subsequent secretly recorded footage, interviews, photographs of the logging yards and stock, and further evidence from within the National Park have been captured.

ANTALAHA, MADAGASCAR - OCTOBER 21, 2009: Sascha von Bismark and Adam Khedouri (not pictured) from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) work undercover as a timber traders discussing stock quality with the depot manager. The timber yard belongs to Roger Thuman, a Malagasi trader of prescious wood, and contains thousands of tonnes of ebony, rosewood and pallisander. The wood is destined to leave the area for China, Europe and US markets as both raw logs and semi-processed pieces.

ANTALAHA, MADAGASCAR - AUGUST 25, 2009: A logbook detailing an international export audit from the port of Antalaha, pictured in a branch of a French-owned BFV bank. The audit lists high value transactions relating to export of rosewood and other timbers to Chinese and German importers.

ANTALAHA, MADAGASCAR - OCTOBER 21, 2009: The timber yard of Roger Thuman, a Malagasi trader of prescious wood, contains thousands of tonnes of ebony, rosewood and pallisander. The wood is destined to leave the area for China, Europe and US markets as both raw logs and semi-processed pieces.



This evidence was presented to Federal Agents upon the return to Washington DC. The imminent landmark prosecution of major US and European traders of illegal timber will be the first such case brought under the new Lacey Act amendment in the US. Search warrants have already been served, and indictments are expected with the coming months.Significantly, Gibson Guitars of Nashville, Tennessee, are now under Federal Investigation. Agents have seized stock and records to substantiate the evidence that Gibson imported its wood illegally from Madagascar via Germany.

ANTALAHA, MADAGASCAR - OCTOBER 21, 2009: The timber yard of Roger Thuman, a Malagasi trader of prescious wood, contains thousands of tonnes of ebony, rosewood and pallisander. The wood is destined to leave the area for China, Europe and US markets as both raw logs and semi-processed pieces. Chinese machinery is also pictured.

The timber yard of Roger Thuman, a Malagasi trader of precious wood, contains thousands of tonnes of ebony, rosewood and pallisander, destined to leave the area for China, Europe and US markets.

Sascha von Bismarck (R) and Adam Khedouri (C) from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) access an illegal timber yard undercover posing as timber traders, enabling full access for evidence gathering.


VOHEMAR, MADAGASCAR - OCTOBER 23, 2009: Illegal rosewood containers in the port town of Vohemar, being loaded onto a boat destined for Mauritius. Each container can hold between 150-250 logs, and most are ultimately destined for China and in some cases Europe. Although the government issued a blockage on the port, the local traders only need to pay a token fine to them be able to continue with their export.


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