Mozambique: Timber exports fall 75% in four years

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Mozambique: Timber exports fall 75% in four years

4:29 CAT | 27 Sep 2024

File photo: Lusa

Mozambique’s timber exports have fallen by 75% in the last four years, to 2.099 million tonnes in 2023, according to a report by the National Statistics Institute (INE) to which Lusa had access on Friday.

According to the INE’s 2023 Basic Environmental Indicators report, from “2020 to 2023, the volume quotas of timber admissible for felling by species have been decreasing”. Numbers fell more sharply in 2023, by 12.7% compared to the previous year, reaching 49,525 cubic metres, of which 5,369 cubic metres were considered to be of “precious” species, such as Black Chacae or Pau-Preto [blackwood].

These quotas result largely in timber exports, which peaked at 7.923 million tonnes in 2019 and have since fallen to 3.132 million tonnes in 2020, 2.276 million tonnes in 2021 and 2.649 million tonnes in 2022, according to the INE report.

In Mozambique, timber processed into logs fell last year to its lowest level since 2020, reaching a low of 50,027 cubic metres.

The 2023 Basic Environmental Indicators report, completed this month, was based on “the collection and processing of administrative data provided by sectors that deal directly or indirectly with environmental issues”, the INE explains.

Mozambique loses 267,000 hectares of forest every year, according to data provided in 2023 by Mozambique’s National Director of Forests, Cláudio Afonso.

“We have been registering some concerns because around 267,000 hectares of forests are lost every year,” Afonso said on the sidelines of the first meeting of the Technical Committee for the Operationalization of the Maputo Declaration on Sustainable and Integrated Management of the Miombo woodlands, last July.

The Global Fund announced in July 2023 that it will make available to Mozambique around US$12 million (€10.8 million) for the revitalization of forest reserves and restoration, institutional support and implementation of the country’s forest monitoring system. Another US$5 million (€4.5 million) will be made available by the Italian Cooperation Agency.

Source: Lusa