350K Trees Cut Down Illegally in Madagascar

More than 350,000 trees were felled illegally inside protected areas in Madagascar between March 2010 and March 2015, according to Traffic, an NGO that monitors the wildlife trade.

Traffic also discovered at least 150,000 tons of logs were illegally exported to destinations including China, Malaysia and Mauritius during the five-year period.

The NGO concluded the illegal logging was the result of political instability, government mismanagement, a lack of forest operation controls and a failure to impose penalties on traffickers.

“Poor governance and corruption led to an anarchic situation with no control over timber harvesting, resulting in an all-out ‘timber-rush’ with widespread felling of rosewood and ebony trees in protected areas across Madagascar, from which it will take years for the environment to recover,” said Roland Melisch, Traffics’s senior program director for Africa, in a statement. “This latest study should help the government of Madagascar to understand the issues that led to this catastrophic situation and to begin the long process of mitigating the ensuing mismanagement crisis.”

The full study is available online.