African coup gives green light to rosewood plunder

For more than ten years, trade in the scarce species of rosewood existed on a small scale. But in the past year, it has increased at least 25-fold, say environmental groups, who estimate the value of trees felled in 2009 alone stands at 115million or more.

This coincided with a military coup in March last year, when Andry Rajoelina, the mayor of Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital, was installed as president, and he has since led a weakened and tottering government that is unable – and perhaps unwilling – to stop the trafficking.

"The government does nothing because it shares in the money," said Ndranto Razakamanarina, president of an association of Malagasy environmental groups and a policy officer with the World Wildlife Fund. "Many of the ministers think they'll be in office only three or six months, so they decide to make money while they can. The timber mafia is corrupt, the ministers are corrupt."

Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island, is a place of extraordinary botanical abundance and saving the rosewood trees is now an international cause.

Repeatedly, the government has announced new policies to halt the trade. "The exporters are strong, but so are we," Prime Minister Camille Vital has said. "Just last week, we arrested 52 of the people involved."

But the men in custody, as Vital admitted, were among the hundreds of impoverished villagers who earn less than 2 a day to trek into the far reaches of the rainforest. Two men can chop down even a thick, sturdy rosewood tree in an hour. Then it requires teams of up to 50 to pull the logs through the muddy, steeply undulating vine-covered woodland.

Last month, the government announced yet another decree to protect the affected forests of the north-east. The area includes two huge World Heritage sites: Marojejy National Park and Masoala National Park.

But the American ambassador, R Niels Marquardt, has dismissed the new regulations as "one big loophole". Lisa Gaylord, the country director for the Wildlife Conservation Society, said: "Whatever the law, this government always finds a way to grant an exception."

In the past, the government has sometimes seized illegal timber and fined the owners. But the penalties were much less than the value of the rosewood, and once the assessments were paid, the logs were authorised for export.

"The rosewood is piled up near the rivers; no-one is trying to hide anything," said Guy Suzon Ramangason, the director general of the organisation that manages many of the parks. "Chinese businessmen pay the exporters and they in turn pay off the controllers, like the police and the government."

Malagasy rosewood – reddish and superbly grained – is among the world's most sought-after timber, especially since Asian sources of similar trees have been depleted. In China, the finished wood is used to make replicas of antique furniture and musical instruments, some for export.

Evidence of the assault on the forest is an open secret along the Antenambalana River. Some 500 rosewood logs lay stacked behind a padlocked bamboo fence in a storage lot surrounded by fields of corn and manioc. The inquisitive were shooed away by five young guards who lolled in the shade of a litchi tree.

"It would be easy for me to die if I gave information to someone from the outside," said one of the gatekeepers.

The river also sits on Antongil Bay, and across the choppy water are coastal villages on the fringes of the Masoala forest. Many of the families owned land within what is now the national park, and say they were falsely promised payment for the appropriated property.

They feel a reverence for nature – and also an entitlement. "God gave us the forest so that we could take what we need," said Francel. "My ancestors are not angry. There are still many trees in the forest."

Thomas Kiloka, 55, porters for the loggers. He knows cutting rosewood is illegal, but there is little chance of being caught. "It's a big forest," he said.