Soaring Chinese demand for rosewood spurs largely illicit trade in West Africa

Johannesburg

NO one paid much attention to the gnarled, yellow-blossomed rosewood trees dotted around farmsteads in northern Ivory Coast until Chinese-backed buyers started offering money for the timber.

Fast forward five years and Ivory Coast is looking back at a tumultuous time in the logging industry, with confusion over permits, illegal harvesting of trees, seizures of trucks, and finally, a blanket ban on rosewood exports in 2014.

"We simply had no idea; for decades, the trees were just there," said Jean Yves Garnault, the government's principal adviser on rosewood. "We only realised its value when we discovered that the wood is fashionable in China."

Soaring Chinese demand for rosewood has spurred a largely illicit trade in West Africa worth at least US$1.3 billion since inception, according to advocacy group Forest Trends. That's decimating forests and heightening tension as governments find that export bans simply prompt dealers to divert truckloads of tim…