Good afternoon. Every few months, an official explains that the state cannot stop the plunder of Cabo Delgado’s forests because the insurgency has made the province too dangerous to police. The provincial delegate of the environmental agency (AQUA), Achimo Francisco, gave Notícias the latest version this week (see below): security risks have restricted field inspections, he said, and the agency has been forced to move its main inspection centre to Montepuez. It is half the story, and the more comfortable half.
A 2024 Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) research found that more than 89% of the timber Mozambique sent to China between 2017 and 2023, some 3.7m tonnes worth $1.3bn, was exported in breach of the national ban on log exports. Former environment minister Celso Correia once estimated that illegal logging cost Mozambique more than half a billion dollars a year.
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The conflict in Cabo Delgado cannot explain a trade of this scale. Timber must be cut, loaded, driven through checkpoints, processed, documented, and placed aboard ships. There are documented cases of detained trucks being released after calls from senior members of the Frelimo establishment or veterans of the liberation struggle. Chinese traders cultivate the same political protection. The EIA reported that Chinese timber and mining trader Yu Guofa, known as “Cabeça Grande”, claimed close relations with former president Filipe Nyusi and former general Alberto Chipande. Another source told the investigators that Chipande helped him obtain timber documents.
Former minister Isabel Nkavandeka, an influential Frelimo figure, owns a 10,000-hectare concession in Muidumbe. The EIA reported that a Chinese businessman allegedly used her export licence in a scheme involving 102 containers of illegal timber sent to China and subsequently returned to Mozambique. Nine people were reportedly charged, but Nkavandeka was not among them, and her concession and export licence were not suspended. Her case allegedly shows how legal concessions and political connections may provide cover for a much larger illegal trade.
