Moz counts its multimillion losses on illegal wood exports

In ten years – between 2003 and 2013 – Mozambique lost over US$540 million through the illegal export of wood to China, a new report has revealed.

Mozambique news agency, AIM, cited a study by researchers at Maputo's Eduardo Mondlane University as stating: “Mozambique has been losing large sums since early 2004 since the amount of illegal timber exported to China is 5.7 times greater than the amount officially declared by the National Directorate of Land and Forests.

The report was commissioned as part of the project ‘Forestry Governance in Mozambique: the Urgency of the Moment’, a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) project undertaken with the support of the Swedish Embassy in Maputo.

According to the report, over 90% of Mozambique's timber exports are destined for China, and most of them are undeclared.

The report compared the official statistics from the two countries. For example, in 2013, Mozambican statistics show that 54 000 cubic metres of logs were exported to China while Chinese statistics indicate that 346 000 cubic metres of logs were imported from Mozambique – a difference of 292 000 cubic metres.