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Tropical timber is accumulating in Gabon's main port as the country's forestry industry is recovering from a corruption scandal that has resulted in the fall of the vice president and has brought a veteran ecologist to supervise its forestry activities.
Wood is a large sum of money in this country of Central Africa, covered in about 80% of forests. The wood sector represents 17,000 jobs and 60% of non-oil GDP.
But in the port of Owendo on the Libreville peninsula, exports have stagnated for months and warehouses are overflowing.
The unrest began at the end of February, when customs officials discovered huge amounts of kevazingo, a precious and forbidden hardwood, at two Chinese owned warehouses in Owendo.
Nearly 5,000 cubic meters (176,000 cubic feet) were seized, worth about $ 8 million, some of which is hidden in containers marked with the Ministry of Forests.
Several suspects were arrested, but the plot thickened in April, when 353 confiscated containers mysteriously disappeared from the port.
The ensuing scandal, dubbed kevazingogate, led the government to dismiss the vice president, the forestry minister and several senior officials.
The minister was replaced last month by Britain's Lee White, an environmental activist who has lived in Gabon for years, fighting for the conservation of its forests and wildlife.
Scandal hits exports
The scandal has "heavily affected people working in the wood industry in Gabon, without differentiating between cheat and those who respect the rules," said Philippe Fievez, director of the French wood company Rougier at Gabon, present in the country since the colonial era. time.
He added that the company had been able to export timber only for three of the first six months of the year and that at the height of the crisis had had to temporarily lay off 400 1,400 employees.
"It will take us six to nine months to get back to normal."
After the discovery of the kevazingo hiding place, also called bubinga, at the end of February, the team responsible for checking goods shipped to the ports was suspended, accused of complicity in a conspiracy smuggling.
The following month, timber exports stopped.
"A month later, the team was replaced, which allowed exports to resume," said Fievez.
But then, the containers disappeared in April and several senior executives were suspended and the fallout reached the peaks of power.
Françoise Van de Ven, general secretary of the UFIGA forestry industry badociation, said: "Our companies have been unable to export since early May – we are talking about a considerable shortfall ".
White, the new Minister of Forests, "immediately took the case" after his appointment in mid-June and exports "have resumed," she said.
But the scandal inflicted "significant" damage to the reputation, she admitted.
& # 39; Image tarnished & # 39;
Exports were also hit by a damning report released by Britain's Environmental Research Agency (EIA) in March, pointing to a Chinese group, Dejia, which has many interests in logging in the Congo Basin. .
The report exposed the apparent ease with which officials accepted bribes to hide the fraudulent activities of some loggers. A few weeks after its publication, the government suspended the Dejia permit on two logging sites.
Benjamin Feng, of Chinese company KHLL Forestry, said that now "buyers have the impression that there is a risk of buying illegal timber when they buy Gabon wood" .
"We have about 1,500 cubic meters of azobed wood ready to leave for Europe, but my Dutch buyer hesitates and asks me," What proves that your wood is legal? "."
"I can prove it, I have all the papers, but the picture has been tarnished," he said.
Fievez de Rougier tried to look at the bright side.
"At least the scandal has had the merit of recalling the bad practices of some loggers – now everyone respects the same rules."
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