Mozambique: Almost €1M in fines for illegal logging, wildlife damage – Watch

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Mozambique: Almost €1M in fines for illegal logging, wildlife damage – Watch

8:30 CAT | 29 May 2025

Screen grab: Assembleia da Republica de Moçambique/YouTube

Mozambique has imposed 650 fines this year for illegal exploitation of forest products and wildlife, amounting to almost €1 million, and has suspended eight mining companies since 2024 for environmental damage, the government announced yesterday.

In parliament, Mozambique’s Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries, Roberto Mito Albino, told MPs that the deployment of inspectors at all land borders and increased surveillance at ports, including the addition of mobile brigades, had enabled the state to seize at least 1,700 cubic metres of logs this year.

A total of 147 cubic metres of sawn timber of various species, 6,670 bags of charcoal, 211 mats of stakes and 17 mats of firewood were also seized, with a total value of 71 million meticais (€980,000).

The products were seized in the provinces of Maputo and Inhambane, with at least two criminal cases pending before the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Minister Albino said.

From 2024 to the first quarter of this year, he added, at least 300 entities with mining titles were inspected, culminating in the penalisation and suspension of at least eight companies for their “negative impact” on the environment in the provinces of Manica, Tete and Gaza, with fines of more than five million meticais (€69,000).

The minister also stated that since 2024, at least 1,328 environmental inspections have been conducted, resulting in 185 fines worth 101.7 million meticais (approximately 1.4 million euros), which have led to four criminal proceedings.

Lusa reported on 21 March that Mozambique’s government plans to hire 750 inspectors in 2026 for ports, border posts and conservation areas to strengthen enforcement and prevent deforestation and illegal exploitation of forest resources.

“Another 750 inspectors are planned, and these 750 are not only for ports and borders, but to increase our capacity at the cutting sites, increase our capacity in conservation areas that have been the focus now, because we have virgin forests, we have valuable timber, and these 750 are to ensure that we can carry out inspections in these areas,” said the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries, Emília Fumo, at the time.

According to Fumo, another thousand inspectors have now been hired to reinforce control at border posts, ports and conservation areas, indicating that more agents need to be allocated in the districts and provinces where there is more illegal exploitation.

Deforestation in Mozambique affected 875,453 hectares over four years, despite a decline in 2022, primarily affecting the provinces of Niassa and Zambézia, according to statistics collected by Lusa and released in October.

According to a report by the National Statistics Institute, which compiled data from 2019 to 2022, the deforestation of various types of forest in the latter year fell by 31% compared to the previous year, to 209,464 hectares.

The peak of deforestation was recorded in 2021, with 303,689 hectares, of which 264,999 hectares were semi-deciduous (tropical) forest, 29,258 hectares were semi-evergreen forest, and 99 hectares were mangrove forest, among others.

In 2019, deforestation in Mozambique affected 199,910 hectares, and in 2020, a total of 242,390 hectares. In these four years recorded by INE, the provinces of Niassa and Zambézia alone accounted for 180,279 and 167,367 hectares of deforestation, respectively.