As Madagascar develops a pilot programme to allow domestic trade in its stockpiled rosewood and ebony logs, serious corruption and environmental concerns have surfaced. While two official stockpiles have been inventoried and secured, they represent 4,465 logs - only a small fraction of the estimated 30,000 logs across the country. International groups are warning that without stringent safeguards, the initiative could become a smokescreen for illegal logging and timber laundering.

Domestic trade as a laundering channel

According to investigations by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), WWF, and Transparency International, allowing trade beyond secured rosewood stockpiles in Madagascar risks enabling the laundering of illegally sourced or freshly felled timber. Past evidence suggests that up to 80 per cent of rosewood entering illegal markets was freshly cut, not retrieved from old stockpiles, because traffickers find new logs easier to source and harder to detect.

Testimonies from traffickers confirm that stockpiled logs are often marked or damaged, making them more easily identifiable by authorities, whereas freshly felled timber appears clean and untraceable. Experts warn that legitimising broader trade would incentivise corruption and encourage logging in protected forests, with traffickers passing fresh wood off as old stock.

This system is fuelled by entrenched corruption. Bribes are routinely paid at every level, from local forest rangers to high-ranking government officials. Influence peddling ensures that authorities either turn a blind eye or actively protect traffickers. Public officials have also been implicated in the illegal granting of logging permits, bypassing environmental laws.

Madagascar’s experience with rosewood highlights these systemic issues: the 2009 political crisis triggered a surge in illegal logging; between 2010 and 2015, over 350,000 trees were cut down annually in protected areas, with 150,000 tonnes of timber illegally exported. Efforts to regulate the trade have been weak: in 2018, CITES rejected Madagascar’s proposal to sell seized rosewood stockpiles due to a lack of transparency and concern it would open the door to laundering.

Successive governments have facilitated the trade, sometimes disguising rosewood exports as vanilla, while powerful timber barons have financed political campaigns and even coups, securing positions of influence to protect their interests.

Limited traceability and oversight

While Madagascar has piloted traceability tools like QR-code tagging in Boeny and Menabe, these efforts cover a negligible portion of the national stockpile and remain vulnerable to manipulation. In these two regions alone, approximately 4,465 logs (231m³) were inventoried, categorised by quality, tagged with QR codes, and entered into a dedicated traceability database accessible online.

The tagging system itself presents weaknesses: QR tags are fragile, risk detachment, and require careful handling. Operational progress has been slow and costly, raising doubts about the feasibility of scaling this approach across Madagascar’s dispersed stockpiles. Without full national coverage, there is a high risk that unmarked timber could be laundered into the system.

Civil society exclusion and transparency gaps

Another major concern raised by the international coalition is the lack of involvement of Malagasy civil society in the process. The government’s approach has largely been technical and top-down. Civil society and local communities report being excluded from shaping how these systems are implemented, further weakening accountability. Without their participation, accountability is diminished, and opportunities for opaque deals and resource mismanagement increase.

There is also no clarity on how logs intended for domestic consumption will be tracked to prevent their export under exemptions allowed by international agreements like CITES, which permits small quantities of timber for handicrafts. This loophole could be manipulated to feed international black markets.

High stakes for biodiversity and the rule of law

Illegal logging has already devastated Madagascar’s rainforests, especially in protected areas like the Atsinanana rainforests, a UNESCO World Heritage Site currently listed as "in danger". The unchecked domestic trade could worsen deforestation and directly contribute to the poaching and extinction of species like the critically endangered Silky sifaka lemur.

Transparency International warns that unless enforcement mechanisms are drastically improved and the entire 30,000-log stockpile is registered and secured under third-party oversight, the initiative could signal a return to widespread environmental crime and corruption in Madagascar.

The coalition has called on Madagascar to restrict all domestic trade to a small, tightly monitored pilot programme involving only the secured logs. It also urges the reformation of the Consultative Group to oversee the process and recommends public transparency on timber flows and usage to ensure that international conservation and anti-corruption commitments are upheld.