Top Gambian officials linked to smuggling of rare tree
FREETOWN - A new report by a US-based agency has alleged that the Gambian authorities have systematically undermined their own ban on the export of rosewood.
The report, entitled cashing- in on chaos, claims senior government officials are the lynchpins in the illegal trade amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The report by the Environmental Investigation Agency alleges some 1.6 million trees have been illegally cut down in Senegal and smuggled into The Gambia in the last eight years.
The Gambia, whose own rosewood trees have long been declared extinct has been exporting the trees mostly to China, the report said.
The three-year-long investigation claims the Senegalese separatist movement, MFDC, have been cutting down the trees to fund their operations, and smuggling the wood to The Gambia where senior government officials are alleged to have been undermining their own ban on the export of the protected species among them the environment minister Lamin Dibba.
The report claims nearly $500m (£399m) of revenue from the trade has not been accounted for by the Gambian authorities.
During a BBC investigation early this year, evidence emerged of the illegal trade happening in plain sight. “We identified at least 12 depots full of rosewood and other timber along the border with Senegal and Gambia - all within Gambian territory.”
But the authorities denied complicity.
And Dibba said that allegations regarding his conduct were false and clearly unsubstantiated.
Shortly after the BBC Africa Eye report the Senegalese and Gambia presidents met and agreed to take action.
Senegal’s president announced that he would send hundreds of rangers to its forest in the southern Casamance province.
The report by the Environmental Investigation Agency alleges some 1.6 million trees have been illegally cut down in Senegal and smuggled into The Gambia in the last eight years.