Seized timber used to make school desks

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Seized timber used to make school desks

8:36 CAT | 20 Nov 2017

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In the central province of Zambezia, the Mozambican government is keeping its promise to transform timber seized from illegal loggers into school desks.

According to the Provincial Director of Land, Environment and Rural Development, Diogo Borges, cited in Friday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, over 155,000 school desks will be produced from the timber seized in the province during “Operation Trunk”.

This was the operation in which brigades formed by the Environment Ministry, the police, the customs services and other agencies raided timber yards throughout northern and central Mozambique, and seized huge amounts of illegally logged timber.

In the Zambezia districts of Quelimane, Nicoadala, Mocuba, Mocubela, Maganja da Costa and Mopeia, the brigades seized 5,049 logs, amounting to slightly more than 1,650 cubic metres of timber. During these raids timber operators were fined 2.12 million meticais (about 35,000 US dollars).

The seized timber, Borges said, is being turned into school desks in phases. The first tender was won by the furniture company Oliba-Mocambique, which will produce 2,500 desks – but by 2019 the total produced will rise to 155,000. This is almost exactly the number of desks that Zambezia needs (155,150) to ensure that no child will have to study sitting on the ground.

The provincial government will have to pay the furniture companies for the desks. Currently the cost of a double desk on the Zambezia market is between 4,700 and 5,500 meticais. Thus purchasing 155,000 desks will cost at least 728 million meticais.

Diogo said the plan will end the deplorable conditions under which many children study. If they are seated at desks, he said, they will have a much better chance of learning how to write, while their health may improve if they are no longer sitting on the frequently wet ground.

Despite Operation Trunk, and despite the ban on the export of logs, illegal loggers have been seen at work again in the Gile National Reserve in Zambezia. This is a protected area in which all exploitation of timber of any kind is banned.

Borges said the illegal loggers had abandoned over 3,000 logs in the reserve, which the authorities are now collecting. He added that measures are under way to mobilise more forest wardens to strengthen controls in the reserve.

Source: AIM