The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has released a report showing how over 1.4 million illegal rosewood logs from Nigeria, worth $300 million, were laundered into China.
According to report gathered from the report released by the Senior Policy Advisor and Director of Forest Campaigns at the EIA, Lisa Handy, the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations and President Muhammadu Buhari’s former Environment Minister Amina Mohammed is facing questions regarding her role in the entire process.
Lisa Handy also stated that, “Thousands of permits,were ultimately signed by the then Minister of Environment, Mrs. Amina J. Mohammed, who currently serves as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN)”,
The permits were reportedly used by Chinese importers to release over 1.4 million illegal logs that had been detained at the Chinese border for months, after having left Nigeria in violation of both Nigerian law and international CITES obligations.
EIA says the products of the illegal logging found their way to luxury furniture boutiques in China, “despite protections placed on this threatened tree species by the CITES.”It further stated that the exploding Chinese demand for kosso over the past five years had triggered a series of “boom-and-bust” cycles that led to the depletion of forests across West African nations.
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