Lessons galore from Malawi on how to combat illegal logging

Logging at Ngong Forest. Logging destroys the local environment. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • They also had to turn down the sizeable bribes that were allegedly offered to them by the group’s leaders along the way.
  • It also underlines the need to provide wildlife rangers with the necessary support to ensure that they can conduct their work in a professional manner.

Last week, a magistrate’s court in Blantyre, Malawi, sentenced 35 individuals — 23 Mozambicans, 10 Malawians and two Chinese — to custodial sentences of a year to 18 months for illegal logging in the Lengwe National Park.

This was after the individuals were found guilty of illegal entry into a protected area; illegally conveying, possessing and using prohibited weapons in a protected area; and illegally disturbing indigenous species in a protected area.

The group also lost all of their equipment, including six tractors, a forklift, a bulldozer, a 30-tonne truck, one Land Cruiser, a Toyota Hilux, four motorbikes and a chainsaw.

SOIL EROSION
The loggers targeted Mopane trees; an increasingly rare protected hardwood, which takes hundreds of years to grow to a mature height.

Mopane are home to a variety of fauna.

They also tend to grow where there is ground water, and help to protect against soil erosion and flash floods.

However, the wood’s economic value comes from it’s popularity as a material for building and crafts.

According to initial estimates, the arrested cut around 240,000 Mopane trees, which — at a cost of about £30 per log at source – comes to £7.2 million.

POACHING

However, a subsequent analysis increased the possible damage to a million trees and £30 million.

Either way, the figures reveal the kind of money that can be made, which often exceeds wildlife poaching.

Details of the operation also reveal the multi-national nature of such crimes — with the loggers crossing over from neighbouring Mozambique under the stewardship of a Portuguese Mozambican and two Chinese nationals, and logs then likely exported to faraway markets out of the northern ports of Mozambique.

The arrests, investigation and court case also highlight the work required to obtain a successful sentence.

BRIBERY
First, and acting on a tip-off, rangers from Malawi’s Department for National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) had to cross Lengwe National Park to find and arrest the individuals involved.

They then had to lead the 35 men and all of the equipment back through the park, which — in the absence of any roads — required the rangers to organise those arrested to create a makeshift track.

In doing so, they also had to turn down the sizeable bribes that were allegedly offered to them by the group’s leaders along the way.

The prosecution’s legal team then needed to compile sufficient evidence to show that these individuals had not just accidentally crossed an unmarked border — as claimed by the accused’s defence — but had intentionally destroyed the local environment.

This included a close analysis of satellite imagery at 50 cm resolution, comparing the difference between 2015 and 2016 data from around the immediate arrest sites to highlight the extent of ecological damage.

TRIAL PERIOD
They then had to interpret the laws so as to be able to lay several charges against the accused.

Perhaps most significantly, the lawyers successfully argued that the team’s logging equipment constituted ‘weapons’ in this context, since it was used to destroy a protected species.

Finally, but not least, the various witnesses had to repeatedly appear in court requiring both the DNPW rangers and the judge to withstand any efforts at intimidation or bribery.

This is not the end of the story. As Professor Julian Bayliss, a technical advisor to the Government of Malawi on Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management, noted in an interview with Zitamar News: “The case has revealed that there are probably many more illegal logging activities occurring in this area, originating out of Banda Village in Mozambique close to the border of Malawi”.

WILDLIFE RANGERS

In turn, the case highlights the need to investigate and close down all other operations, which would require “collaborative law enforcement coordination between Mozambique and Malawi”.

This landmark case thus reminds us of the scale of wildlife crime; the multi-national nature of the networks involved; and the fact that it involves much more than wildlife poaching.

It also underlines the need to provide wildlife rangers with the necessary support to ensure that they can conduct their work in a professional and committed manner; the importance of the broader political environment and judicial system; and need for international collaboration to tackle such crimes.

Lynch is an Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Warwick, UK. [email protected]; @GabrielleLynch6