Madagascar moves to reopen domestic trade in non-precious timber

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — On Oct. 21, Madagascar’s council of ministers issued a decision to reopen the domestic market for so-called ordinary wood — non-precious timber logged from natural forests. This market had been closed for nearly two years, leaving loggers with deteriorating stockpiles of wood they were unable to sell.

But timber markets are a sensitive issue in Madagascar, where forests are rapidly shrinking, illegal logging is ubiquitous and most people depend on wood for fuel and building materials, and the decision sparked questions from the media. Two weeks later, on Nov. 2, the environment ministry held a press conference to clear up any confusion.

Ministry personnel clarified that the government will not issue any new permits for commercial logging of ordinary wood, and that its export remains prohibited. They also confirmed that the move in no way applies to precious timber, whose stocks remain illegal to log, sell or export. The harvest and sale of exotic species, such as pine and eucalyptus, which are widely planted for timber and fuel, remains legal.

Trade in ordinary timber resumes

In January 2019, the environment minister at the time, Alexandre Georget, issued a note suspending the legal exploitation, transport and export of ordinary wood across the island nation. The aim was to give forests a break from logging as well as clean up the country’s wood sector, notorious for its corruption and lawlessness.

Now, less than two years later, the government has eased the 2019 suspension. Stockpiles of ordinary wood that operators and formally recognized forest communities harvested according to legal permits before the suspension took effect can now be sold domestically. Eligible stockpiles are thought to comprise 6,000 cubic meters (212,000 cubic feet) of wood, enough to fill two and a half Olympic-size swimming pools. The government is planning an inventory to determine the exact amount.

Commercial logging of all natural forests remains suspended, according to environment ministry officials. Raw ordinary timber still cannot be exported from the country, but products made from the authorized stocks now can.

The move only pertains to commercial timber use. Communities continue to enjoy their traditional rights to harvest timber from natural forests for domestic consumption, such as fuelwood or home construction, provided they comply with the rules and never commercialize the wood. “The hunting of wild animals and the destruction of any protected areas are crimes resulting in severe sanctions,” the environment ministry’s press release stated.

The move to reopen the Malagasy wood sector is the fruit of a series of negotiations between the industry and the government, said Rose Razanarisoa, head of Madagascar’s forest operators’ trade group, GNEFM. “The 2019 suspensions asphyxiated our activity,” she told Mongabay, and the group lobbied the government hard to lift them.

Razanarisoa described a Sept. 22 meeting where small-scale members of the wood industry, including vendors, carpenters, transporters, traders and factory owners, gathered to familiarize themselves with new rules the government had imposed on the sector as a condition of releasing the authorized stockpiles. “The aim was to educate each other on how to make the wood industry sustainable,” she said. “We are committed to respecting the rules … We will fully cooperate with the government.”

Precious timber sales remain off-limits

Officials at the Nov. 2 press conference took pains to clarify that the new move does not change anything with respect to precious timber, such as rosewoods and palisanders (genus Dalbergia) and ebonies (genus Diospyros). The logging, transport and export of unprocessed, raw precious timber remain totally prohibited, as they have been for years under national laws as well as CITES, the international trade convention.

After rampant illegal logging of precious timber burst forth following a 2009 coup d’état, the government has maintained stockpiles of seized contraband logs. Determining what to do with them has sparked a national conundrum. They’d be worth millions if sold on the international market, but that would only fuel demand and legitimize illicit trade. Yet currently they are deteriorating in indefinite storage, poorly inventoried and reportedly serving as cover for illegal traders to launder a steady stream of freshly cut trees.

Last year, the government abandoned a years-long effort to convince CITES to allow it to sell the precious timber abroad. It is now setting up a plan to use the stockpiles domestically, for example in the construction of public buildings and the manufacture of handicrafts that could be sold to tourists or exported.

“The president wants us to profit from their domestic use, which … represents a huge opportunity for locals,” the environment minister, Baomiavotse Vahinala Raharinirina, told Mongabay in a Nov. 6 interview.

The plan will be submitted to President Andry Rajoelina and his cabinet, and then to CITES for approval, according to the minister. She expressed confidence that CITES would sign off on the plan. “For their domestic use, talks with CITES are under way. CITES respects our national sovereignty over the rosewood [stockpiles],” she said.

Getting a handle on illegal logging

Due to widespread corruption, curtailing rampant illegal logging, which endangers Madagascar’s unique biodiversity, is one of the government’s biggest challenges.

Paul Raonintsoa, head of the national association of water and forest engineers (AIFM), said the biggest issue is weak law enforcement. “We have a lot of laws relating to forest management,” he said, referencing legal codes that date back to 1930. “What we have to do is just to make them work fully.”

Decades of lawlessness and Malagasy politicians’ persistent advocacy to let their constituents freely access forest resources have weakened the country’s forestry administration, Raonintsoa said. With a national average of one agent supervising 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of forest, the government’s forestry workforce is severely understaffed.

“Forest exploitation has always been the most neglected sector in Madagascar. This explains the high rate of deforestation, nationally. The deforestation would never be so extensive if the law was well enforced,” said Razanarisoa, the GNEFM head.

Between 2001 and 2019, Madagascar lost 3.89 million hectares (9.6 million acres) of tree cover, the equivalent of 23% of the tree cover present in 2000, according to the mapping platform Global Forest Watch. Fires and clearing for pasture and agricultural land are major factors, in addition to logging.

There’s no question, however, that illegal logging is widespread. Plantations of exotic trees for timber and fuel are insufficient to meet demand. “Our attention has been focused on the rosewood issue in such a way that we have tended to neglect the importance of the need for [ordinary] wood at the local level” in driving illegal logging and deforestation, Raonintsoa said.

Madagascar’s wood consumption rose from 2.1 million to 2.8 million metric tons between 2005 and 2015, an average annual increase of 15%, according to a World Bank study that indicated the country’s management of its wood capital is unsustainable.

According to Razanarisoa, before they were overturned the restrictions on domestic sales of ordinary wood only further fueled illegal logging, endangering forests across the island. She drew particular attention to the management of so-called zones of production — forested areas outside protected areas where timber harvest is legal with the proper permits and adherence to rules intended to maintain forest health. These zones are supposed to ensure the national need for wood is met, yet they, like the protected areas themselves, are subject to nonstop illegal logging, she said. This harms both the country’s legal wood sector and the forests, she added.

Raonintsoa called for the country to finally complete and implement a long-planned forestry code intended to strengthen law enforcement. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization was assisting the country in a $364,000 project to draft the code between August 2014 and December 2016, but it appears to have stalled out. A spokesperson for the agency’s office in Antananarivo said that four years on, the Madagascar government has yet to revise and approve the draft document.

Without such steps to rein in illegal logging, it remains to be seen whether a legal and sustainable domestic trade in ordinary wood products can thrive.

Banner image: A forest community member shows a logging trail used by wood traffickers in the rainforest of Ambohidray in the district of Moramanga in eastern Madagascar in October 2020. Image by Rivonala Razafison.

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