This archive report was first published on 7 July 2019.
On the Libreville peninsula, the port of Owendo has seen exports of timber stagnate for months, with warehouses overflowing due to the lack of exports.
The trouble began in late February 2019, when customs officials discovered huge quantities of kevazingo, a precious and banned hardwood, in two Chinese-owned depots at Owendo.
Approximately 5,000 cubic meters of kevazingo, worth around $8 million, were seized, with some of it disguised in containers bearing the stamp of the forestry ministry.
Several suspects were arrested, but the plot thickened in April 2019, when 353 of the confiscated containers mysteriously disappeared from the port.
The ensuing scandal, dubbed kevazingogate, led to the government sacking the vice president, the forestry minister, and several senior civil servants.
Lee White, a British-born environmental campaigner, was appointed as the new forestry minister in June 2019, replacing the previous minister.
Philippe Fievez, head of French timber company Rougier in Gabon, stated that the scandal had heavily affected people working in Gabon's timber industry, without differentiating between those who cheat and those who play by the rules.
He added that the company had been able to export wood for just three of the first six months of the year and had to temporarily lay off 400 of its 1,400 employees at the height of the crisis.
"It's going to take us between six and nine months to return to normal," Fievez said.
After the stash of kevazingo was found, the team responsible for checking cargo loaded onto ships at ports was suspended, accused of complicity in a smuggling plot.
Timber exports ground to a halt the following month, but resumed after the team was replaced.
However, the containers vanished in April 2019, and several top executives were suspended, leading to a significant reputational damage to the industry.
Francoise Van de Ven, secretary-general of the forestry industry association UFIGA, stated that the companies had been unable to export since early May, resulting in a considerable loss of profits.
White, the new forestry minister, immediately took on the case after his appointment and exports have just resumed, according to Van de Ven.
Exports were also hit by a damning report issued by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) in March 2019, which pointed the finger at a Chinese group, Dejia, for its widespread logging interests in the Congo Basin.
Benjamin Feng of the Chinese company KHLL Forestry stated that now buyers have the impression there is a risk of purchasing illegal timber when buying wood from Gabon.
"We have about 1,500 cubic meters of azobe wood ready to go to Europe, but my Dutch buyer is hesitating, asking me: 'What proves that your wood is legal?'."
"I can prove it, I have all the papers, but the image has been tarnished," Feng said.
