Environmental Groups Ask Shipper to Cancel Madagascar Wood Shipments

March 17, 2010  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Green on March 18, 2010

Two environmental groups, Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency, have called on French shipping company Delmas to cancel a shipment of hundreds of tons of rosewood from the port of Vohémar, in northeastern Madagascar.

The Delmas operated vessel Kiara arrived in Vohemar last week and currently is taking on containers of rosewood. The groups accuse the company, a division of shipping group CMA-CGM, of facilitating the destruction of Madagascar's last remaining forests. Since June of 2009, Global Witness, EIA, and other organizations have repeatedly advised Delmas of the situation and urged the company not to ship illegal wood from Madagascar.
 
According to the groups, political turmoil early last year triggered an invasion of Madagascar's national parks by thousands of illegal loggers. A
report by Global Witness and EIA in November 2009 estimated that the trade in illegal rosewood and ebony was worth up to $460,000 per day.
 
Although almost all harvest and export of precious woods has been banned in Madagascar since 2006, local and national officials have been known to issue illegitimate export permits. 
 
The groups said timber shipped by Delmas usually ends up in China, the largest market for illegal Malagasy wood, but U.S. and European consumers have also been known to purchase it. If the wood finds its way to U.S. shores, company officials could face criminal and civil sanctions under the Lacey Act, which was amended in 2008 to prohibits trade in illegally sourced wood and its products. In November 2009, the American guitar maker Gibson was raided by U.S. authorities, reportedly targeting illegally imported rosewood from Madagascar.