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Global hardwood demand fuelling illicit trade cuts deep into Gambia’s revenue

Global hardwood demand fuelling illicit trade cuts deep into Gambia’s revenue
Feyi Ogunade
By Feyi Ogunade
13 Jan 2025
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Laws and policies against illicit logging exist, but sustainable solutions should also consider the many benefits of ecotourism.

Illegal logging in Africa costs the continent up to $17-billion annually. A high global demand for African hardwood fuels this environmental crime. By value and by volume, rosewood is the most trafficked wildlife product worldwide. 

Africa’s share of illegal rosewood exports to China surged from 40% in 2008 to 90% in 2018, says the United Nations (UN) Office on Drugs and Crime. In 2022, an Environmental Investigation Agency analysis revealed that more than three million tonnes of rosewood, valued at more than $2-billion, were illicitly traded between west Africa and China over five years.

Gambia, a small west African nation known for its rich biodiversity, is severely affected by this trade. Even though it ratified the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in August 1977, most of the 1.6 million rosewood trees exported from Gambia between 2012 and 2020 violated the convention.

A former Senegalese rosewood trafficker, now a state forest guard, who requested anonymity, said the trade operated inside a clandestine network in Gambia and Senegal. Locals fell trees and sell the logs to dealers, who bribe forestry officials to transport the illegally cut logs along backroads and through forests to the country’s ports. Traders in Senegal and Gambia then smuggle the wood in mislabelled containers to China.

Gambia’s border with Senegal is porous, with limited checks on the flow of illegally sourced timber. Alleged corruption involving government officials weakens enforcement of regulations, limiting the number of prosecutions.

For more than 40 years, Senegal’s Casamance region – a strip south of Gambia – has been the primary source of illegally traded rosewood. The region has been embroiled in an insurgency between the separatist Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance and Senegal’s government. The separatists rely on the illicit rosewood trade to fund their insurgency.

Gambia and Senegal’s Casamance region


Gambia rosewood

Political elitism has also played a part in this illegal logging. During Yahya Jammeh’s rule from 1996 to 2017, Gambia’s wood trade, especially with China, and trafficking from the Senegal side of the Casamance reportedly surged to its highest levels. TRIAL International accused Jammeh and some of his business partners of exploiting the country’s timber resources and directly funding the Casamance insurgency through his company, Westwood Gambia.

From 2014 to 2017, Westwood was the sole timber company licensed for exports and played a significant role in the illegal rosewood trade. In 2019, a US Justice Department investigation found that Jammeh had misappropriated almost $1-billion from public funds, including revenue from illegal timber.

In March 2022, CITES banned felling, transporting and exporting Pterocarpus erinaceus (Senegal rosewood) in all African countries where the species was endemic. Gambia’s government implemented a national ban that year.

However, Gambian forest guards say traffickers continue to collaborate with Chinese businesspeople and local residents, using back routes to smuggle the timber out of the Casamance and Gambia. 

One said that although a crackdown in Gambia made it harder to transport wood to the ports, traffickers colluded with officials to facilitate exports. Poverty and scant economic opportunities in rural areas fuel illegal logging and trafficking, with small operators felling trees on farmlands and in protected forests to sell to dealers. 

Gambia recognises the scale of the problem and the impact on its environment, economy and social fabric. In February 2017, President Adama Barrow permanently revoked all timber permits and banned timber exports. The 2018 Forest Act prohibited the felling and export of several species and criminalised timber export from Gambia without proper authorisation. 

But bans alone won’t stem the trade. Gambia is also helping the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to improve its capacity to monitor illegal logging.

The country’s 2022 Agroforestry Strategy doesn’t directly address illegal logging, but aims to develop a foundation of natural resources strong enough to endure climate change and support community wellbeing, says senior forest ranger Alfred Mendy. 

In contrast, Gambia’s National Forest Action Plan – in effect since 2018 – tackles the problem head-on. It aims to ensure that timber is legally harvested and traded and includes strict regulations for logging permits, tracking timber’s origin and compliance with sustainable forestry practices. But the results have not been as robust as intended.

Forest ranger Ibrahima Sow says Gambia collaborates with Senegal to deal with the illegal trade. In 2018, Barrow and Macky Sall, Senegal’s president at the time, issued a joint declaration committing to intensify joint patrols, establish an independent observatory on border practices, exchange information on timber exports, identify traffickers and bring them to justice. But again, the outcomes of this agreement aren’t clear.

Limited financial and technological resources hinder Gambia’s ability to monitor and control illegal logging. The government also needs financial intelligence to track the profits from the illicit trade, and digital traceability systems to disrupt timber laundering.

Gambia’s ratification of CITES requires the government to publish information on timber permits and logging quotas, which has not happened. Doing so would show its commitment to establishing a more accountable forestry sector.

Ecotourism, agroforestry and sustainable agriculture could create sustainable livelihoods for local communities that depend on forests. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has offered technical support to various countries to establish ecotourism initiatives rooted in sustainable forest management.

Ecotourism can protect endangered forests by balancing conservation and tourism. Gambia’s biodiversity offers potential for nature-based tourism, engaging local communities as eco-guides, lodge operators or artisans. 

This approach not only supports livelihoods but generates revenue for reinvesting in conservation, fostering both environmental protection and economic growth. DM

Dr Feyi Ogunade, West Africa Organised Crime Observatory coordinator, ENACT, Institute for Security Studies (ISS).

ENACT is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Institute for Security Studies in partnership with Interpol and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. 

First published by ISS Today.

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