Mozambique: Forestry director confirms ban on export of logs as from January 2017

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Mozambique: Forestry director confirms ban on export of logs as from January 2017

7:55 CAT | 30 Sep 2016

Mozambique’s National Director of Forests, Xavier Sacumbuera, has confirmed that, as from January, all exports of logs of any type will be banned, assuming that the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, approves a government proposal to this effect at its next sitting, due to begin in mid-October.

Speaking to reporters in Beira, where a national meeting on forests is taking place, Sacumbuera said that government has submitted an amendment to the forestry law, which is now with the Assembly, “so that, as from January 2017, the export of logs from all species of Mozambican trees will be forbidden”.

He added that this ban is intended to stimulate the processing of timber inside Mozambique, creating more jobs, adding value to wood, and only exporting wood that has been processed.

There have been many haphazard attempts in the past to outlaw the export of logs from particular species of hardwoods, but this would be the first blanket ban on the export of all logs. As such it is bound to meet with ferocious opposition from logging interests, who are busy destroying Mozambique’s forests in order to sell unprocessed wood to foreign buyers, often from China.

A complete ban means that forest wardens and customs inspectors will no longer have to determine what kind of trees the logs come from, since all log exports will be illegal.

Current estimates are that Mozambique is losing 220,000 hectares of forest a year. This is due not only to logging, but to the use of wood fuel, uncontrolled bush fires associated with slash and burn agriculture, and the clearing of land for building purposes.

Source: AIM