Despite Mozambican government restrictions on the export of logs, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) estimates that between 2017 and 2023, around 3.7 million tonnes of logs, worth an estimated $1.3 billion (€1.2 billion), were shipped to China. 

The London and New York-based organisation has been monitoring the timber sector in Mozambique for several years, with a recent focus on Cabo Delgado, and believes there are links between the illegal timber trade and Islamist insurgent groups. 

A report published this month quotes a well-placed source estimating that “30% of the timber exploited in Cabo Delgado is at high risk of originating from forests occupied by the insurgents”.

The logs are allegedly cut in the districts of Montepuez, Muidumbe, Meluco, Quissanga, Mueda, and even in the neighbouring province of Nampula, and then transported to sawmills in Montepuez, sometimes by motorbike or hidden in the luggage compartments of passenger buses. 

Based on interviews with more than 30 local sources, including industry professionals, civil society and government officials, the EIA describes how the movement of timber is facilitated by bribes paid to police, soldiers, government officials and customs inspectors. 

The report states that “individuals within the Frelimo party are profiting from the illegal timber trade and the chaos and insecurity caused by the insurgency”.

The timber is then bought by Chinese businesspeople, who ship the logs in containers to China via international shipping companies.

Logs of ebony in particular, a protected native species, can be bought for a few dollars but end up being used to make furniture worth thousands of dollars. 

The businesspeople buy timber from a variety of sources, some of it illegal, including from forests occupied by the insurgents, said Alexandra Bloom, who led the research.  

"Sometimes it’s timber that the insurgents have cut themselves, and they are benefiting from the money they are making from selling this timber. One source told us that they were hiding in the forest and they were running low on money, so they started selling timber,” she explained.

The trade ends up providing funding for the region’s dominant terrorist group, Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jamaah (ASWJ), also known internationally as ISIS-Mozambique and locally as Al-Shabab. 

Bloom, who is the EIA’s lead analyst on the wildlife trade, believes that Maputo is making efforts to combat both the insurgency and this type of illicit activity. 

However, she added, “there are a lot of people taking bribes along the illegal timber supply chain, so they have an incentive to let it continue”. 

Restrictions on the export of logs have been in place since 2002, and were strengthened in 2017 to ban the export of native species. In 2023, the ban was extended to all species.

As well as urging the Mozambican government to dedicate more resources to forest governance and transparency in the timber trade, the organisation wants international shipping companies to stop transporting illegal timber from Mozambique, and is calling for greater intervention from Beijing.

"This is being exacerbated to some extent by the huge amount of money and the demand for these products in China, and it’s being facilitated by shipping companies. The Chinese government could do a lot more to stop the import of illegal timber,” Bloom said, pointing to past successes in combating the ivory trade.

The timber trafficking also highlights the growing problem of deforestation in Mozambique, which has lost almost half of its forest cover since the 1980s, leaving the country exposed to climate change and extreme weather events such as cyclones and hurricanes. 

"The whole point of the log export ban is to keep the resource in the country and if they want to process it, they should process it in-country and capture that value and create economic opportunities domestically and create more jobs for people in Mozambique and in Cabo Delgado,” she stressed.

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