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.