May 24, 2023 • 30 mins
Zambia is home to a rare and coveted rosewood called mukula, but the country has been losing its treeline for years. The Zambian government put regulations and penalties in place to stop the illegal logging of this vital resource, but still, the deforestation continued. So what was accounting for the rapid disappearance of mukula? One undercover investigation exposed a chain of corruption and fraud – leading all the way to the top of Zambia’s government.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
School of humans.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Pterocarpus tinctorius is a slow growing evergreen native to the
heart of southern Africa. It goes by many names padoucta, frek, barwood,
and belle, and in Zambia locals call it micula. Micula
is a defining feature of Zambia's landscape. It attracts pollinating bees,
(00:31):
provides leafy greens for chips and columbus monkeys, and is
a major source of shade in rural villages. And its wood,
as my friend Alan Schwartz has told me, is undeniably beautiful.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
The thing about that janctorius is it's intensely red. It
really really is bright, and that bright red color losts
for a very long time.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
That beautiful red makes micula an attractive material for luxury furniture,
cabinets and floors.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It is extremely desirable in China and Vietnam. The price
of it is insanely high.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
But the tree's desirability has been its curse.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I don't think there's any left of it in the
north of Nigeria or Cameroon. In the far north of Mozambique,
on the border with Tanzania, there will probably no more
than about two thousand cubes of standing timber, and literally
within one season all of that was gone.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And what's extra creepy about it is that when you
cut down a micola, beads of dark red sap ooze
to the surface.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Mokula means the tree that bleeds, the.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Tree that bleeds. For Laggers, rosewoods are like gold. In fact,
the UN estimates that between two thousand and five and
twenty fourteen, about thirty five percent of the place and
its seized wildlife was rosewood, not ivory, not tiger bone. Rosewood. Today,
(02:09):
Lagger's eyemacola as the next big thing. Within the past decade,
they flocked to groves in Zambia. Just a few years ago,
you only had to drive thirty miles outside of Zambia's
capital city of Lusaka to find towering patches of mikula.
Now the closest large population is more than six hundred
(02:32):
miles away. The Zambian government has tried to stop illegal cutting.
They've enacted a series of on again, off again restrictions
in hopes of saving the tree. Now, Alexander von Bismarck,
the guy from the last episode at the Environmental Investigation Agency.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Explains Zambia responded to to really public pressure by implementing
their own zero export quota or effectively a.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Ban, but it didn't stick.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Those bands were not worth the paper they were written on.
Container after container was flowing out of Zambia to China
for their demand for this red wood for redwood furniture
and China.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
In a twenty seventeen speech, one government official stepped up
to ask why.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
The GOVERNMENTI has a putt sit regent recitrication in place,
but it was a surprise. The logging and continuous. Who
does the government te think is the many cow pretty
in activity?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
That is a good question. So in twenty seventeen, the
Environmental Investigation Agency went undercover. They cooked up aliases pretending
to be investors and timber traders. They wore secret cameras
and microphones, and they plunged into the forest and snuck
around high rise offices. They found shocked everybody. I'm Summer
(04:04):
rain Oaks from School of Humans and iHeart podcasts. This
is bad seeds. To understand what's happening in Zambia, you
have to know about an event that rocked China twenty
five years ago. It's nineteen ninety eight and the forecast
(04:29):
calls for rain. First comes El Nino and then without
any break, La Nina. As rain pours, sheets of snow
on the Chinghai to bat Plateau start to melt, draining
into China's rivers. The yank Sea, sung Hua and Nintiyong
(04:50):
rivers swell, and for the next sixty days, floods swallow
farmland and destroy homes, hospitals, and schools. More than thirty
seven hundred people die, fifteen million are left homeless, just
(05:15):
as many farmers lose their crops, and a total of
two hundred and twenty three million people. Then a fifth
of China's population is affected. But when it comes time
to assess the damage, Chinese officials do not blame the
excess rainfall. They look to the past. Because for the
previous half century, China had clear cut its woodlands. In
(05:39):
some parts, fifty percent of the forest had disappeared. The
deforestation caused soil to erope. Vast blankets of silt drained
into the waterways and settled, making rivers more shallow. The
country's waterways couldn't hold as much rain as they used to.
(06:00):
In other words, had helped cause the floods. The government
swiftly banned logging in the country's natural forests. They started
a major replanting program, and they restricted logging to a
handful of state owned farms. It was one of the
most dramatic conservation policies ever enacted, but it had consequences
(06:26):
because the country's thirst for timber did not diminish. It
soon became the world's top importer of wood.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
In the words of forest Trends in Ngo, the vision
for a greener China may end up exporting environmental damage
to other more vulnerable countries, among them Zambia.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Demand from China for the Mukula tree was overwhelming and
was devastating that population of tree, and that it was
clear that it wasn't going to be long before it
would be economically extinct and ultimately biologically extinct.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
In Zambia, trees are a big economic driver. The forestry
sector employs one point one million people and contributes to
more than five percent of the country's GDP. It's such
a big deal that in Andola, the Premier League soccer
club is called the Forest Rangers. The fees collected from
(07:32):
forestry are important too. They help build hospitals and schools
and keep the economy humming. As a result, most people
in Zambia understand that it's important to harvest trees at
a healthy pace. Overlogging could destroy all of this economic
momentum because no trees means no money.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
The concern is that it really threatens the economic future
of the country. Deforestation is identified as one of the
major threats to zambia sustainability, to agriculture, to ecosystem services
that are given to everybody by the landscape.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Preventing deforestation is an economic priority and one of the
groups responsible for helping that mission is the Zambia Forestry
and forest Industries Corporation, better known as ZAFFACO.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
That is a longstanding company in Zambia that was really
controlled by state officials.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Zaffaco employs thousands of people and manages fifty thousand hectores
of plantations where it grows pine and eucalyptus, making things
like utility poles and fences. On their website, a slick
corporate values page states we put Zaffaico's obligations above our
personal interests and conduct ourselves in a manner that is
(08:54):
beyond reproach. Now around twenty sixteen, Zaffaco was on the
forefront of stopping the illegal theft of micula. The Zambian
government had banned logging micula. When the FED seized illegal shipments,
they handed it over to Zaffaco, who auctioned off the logs.
(09:14):
The thinking went, if we catch you cutting micula, we'll
take those logs from you. You'll get no money and
then we the public will enjoy your profits. As one
Zambian politician.
Speaker 6 (09:27):
Put it, the people need to benefit from their trees.
They just can't experience the deferstration for nothing. Let mukula
revenue build hospitals with mantilla doings.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Zaffaco reported that they made four point three million dollars
from the first seizure, all of it going to important
state services.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
To where it is desperately needed, to schools, to hospitals,
to infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
In twenty seventeen, the country tightened the clamp even more,
banning movement of micula locks. In a speech, ze Mbia's
Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Jean Kapita, made it clear.
Speaker 7 (10:05):
Zambia is not going to allow any transit of mukula
logs on each soil.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The borders suddenly choked with trucks hauling timber. Once again,
the same story played out. The logs were seized, Zaffago
gained control, it auctioned them off for the people's benefit.
In government, Minister Kapita rejoiced in the ban.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
The Mukula tree is too valuable to be left to
a small part of the population to reap the benefits.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Many Zambians applauded the effort too. They didn't know that
undercover agents with the Environmental Investigation Agency had discovered that
Zaffago was engaged in a cover up.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
We just heard the alarm calls four years ago or so,
and there was really outrage on the ground by the
people for what was having happening to their forest.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Just listen to one of their secretly recorded conversations.
Speaker 8 (11:06):
If you really follow the trained in Zambia, individuo Chinese
companies of quoting export paymits. Now the ones that are
responsible in the facilitation of these export paymits, it is
afficos just some very well to some mixed I must conface.
Speaker 9 (11:25):
It's just this Smoka.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Taio Zaffaco was quote a small cartel. In the same
secret recording, the source had even harsher.
Speaker 8 (11:34):
Words and that you felt it all comes as just
the contuit of crime.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
A conduit of crime. The state had a dirty secret.
Zaffaca wasn't just seizing a legal locks. Zaffaca was also
cutting them down and then sneaking them into the stockpile
of seized locks. Zaffaco, in other words, was using the
seizures as a cover.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
It was the chief mechanism for getting the wood out
of the country to China with a veneer of legality.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
So much for that slick company values page saying they'd
put their obligations above their personal interests. The question agents
had was who in government was behind the cover up.
To find out, they would have to go deeper. In
(12:36):
twenty seventeen, undercover sleuths from the Environmental Investigation Agency began
tapping into Zambia's illegal macula trade. Understandably, Von Bismarck couldn't
give us too many details of how exactly his agency
managed to infiltrate the illicit logging operation.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
We have to protect our sources, particularly in the cases
where the corruption is so serious that it is really
very dangerous for anybody that speaks up. But generally an
investigation like this we tend to go undercover to talk
to people along the supply chain as fellow.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Traders, pretending to be an interested buyer. An ei A
agent sat down with the macula trafficker with of course
his trustee recorder rolling.
Speaker 9 (13:25):
So what you're here? First, you trotter par so work.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
The agent's voice is obscured for his safety, which is
why it's kind of hard to understand.
Speaker 9 (13:41):
We're concerning broke. Is that off or is utigal or legal?
It is illegal?
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I bet this is h Sursport Sylvie.
Speaker 9 (13:52):
Now it's over people.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
The trafficker tells the agent that macoola trading is his
business and although it's illegal, it's open. The EIA would
have many more conversations like this, such as this one
with a Chinese trafficker. We had some actors translate.
Speaker 9 (14:14):
Are there still a lot of macola trees out there?
Speaker 10 (14:16):
If we keep logging like this? In two years all
mcoola trees will be logged in North Province.
Speaker 9 (14:24):
So they're almost extinct.
Speaker 10 (14:25):
Almost five years ago you see mcola everywhere East Province,
everywhere you go. Basically now there is nothing.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
It's interesting when you're just having a conversation with traffickers,
you know, it's kind of shooting the breeze. Business to business,
you do often find people who are conflicted. We had
traffickers talk about that it's very clear that that species
is going to be gone very soon. So in the
context of those kind of conversations that were recorded, the
(14:58):
truth from really multiple well placed sources, meaning traders, people
doing the work, the truth became pretty clear.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Indeed, as the agency crept through the underworld, they discovered
all the ways Zaffago laundered illegal wood. One way was
through phony permits.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
If you are a corrupt official, there are a lot
of ways you can use permits. Even when theoretically cutting
is not allowed, you have the ability to use all
kinds of paperwork to allow that wood to move. Hey,
you've got a band in place, but this is an
exceptional permit or a special permit, or it is covering
(15:44):
maybe a fallen wood from a storm.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
In the words of one trafficker whose testimony is in
the EIA's final report, Zaffago was even in charge of
some logging.
Speaker 11 (15:55):
It's always their own locked wood. They'll handle the logging.
After you paid, you go to their concession and load
your trucks. They will handle the exporting permit and you're
good to go.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
The report says that Zaffaco was quote allowing anyone with
enough money and high level connections to secretly export freshly
cut makola logs out of Zambia. The anyone with enough
money bit is key. Another trafficker stated.
Speaker 10 (16:26):
If you are not willing to pay, I won't be
able to get you this permit. Mukula itself does not
cost a loss of money, only five thousand dollars per container.
Transport costs another eight thousand US dollars. The rest is
government fees.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
By fees, he means bribes.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Getting those permits ended up costing around fifteen thousand dollars,
so more than half of the value of a container
was spent on getting these illegal permits. Making payments to
officials to cover for entirely illegally stolen.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Would and there was really only one way to even
pay those bribes.
Speaker 10 (17:14):
If you have connections with higher level relations, you can
get an export permit with Zipico.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
You needed to know people with high level relations. Zaffaco,
in other words, was not just a government agency that
had gone rogue. The fake permits were coming from higher up, and,
as one trafficker described, only for special people.
Speaker 9 (17:45):
You could hold you with higher.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Help you of course number three number.
Speaker 9 (17:53):
Or meeting.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
That audio is tough to hear, so if you missed
any the traffickers justs that you have to be connected
to the country's third highest government official, Zambia's then Justice minister.
That's when von Bismarck realized something that the bans on
Micula were part of an even greater conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Controls were simply used by the most powerful to control
the trade, rather than to actually stop the trade. It
was being used really as a way to limit the
trade to the most powerful.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
The EIA realized if it was going to get to
the bottom of the Mcula heist, its agents would have
to work their way up to the highest rungs of
Zambia's government. It started by finding a foot soldier among
the country's political elite.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I am in the system.
Speaker 11 (18:49):
I wake in the system, I wake in the governments.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
The government worker offered agents help with paperwork, export permits, certificates,
all of it illegal, and he didn't stop there. The
worker explained how the logs would be shipped, where they'd
be shipped, the corrupt customs agent they'd meet at the port,
and how to properly misdeclare the wood on documents to
trick clean agents, but you still needed approval from higher up.
(19:17):
You had to pay so called fee. When agents talked
with a Chinese trafficker, they got some helpful advice on
who exactly to talk to.
Speaker 9 (19:29):
How did you get the logs out?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
We are one of the three exputters who got the
permise there. We were able to get containers out of
Zambia since then.
Speaker 9 (19:39):
So you've been shipping out for a year.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yes, we had been in this business for over ten
years in Zambia.
Speaker 12 (19:46):
Did you mention last time that you were partnering with
the Minister of Land and Natural Resources? Yes, female minister. Yes,
her name is Capita.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yes, Jeane Capita, the Minister of Land Lands and Natural Resources,
the same person who you might remember gave a speech
in Poland celebrating the mccoola band calling the wood quote
too valuable for just a small part of the population
to reap the benefits. It turns out that small part
(20:15):
of the population she was a part of it. I
want to share two numbers with you that are going
to make you see the world a little differently. Fifteen
(20:35):
to thirty. That is fifteen to thirty percent of all
the wood on the market right now is illegal.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Throughout human history, for as have been a real problem
because they're difficult to know what's going on inside them,
and when you have huge demand on one side of
the world for a certain tree in a deep forest,
it still becomes pretty easy to steal it.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Corruption is everyone. In Romania, the police tasked with monitoring
illegal logging, that is, the group designed to track corruption,
are themselves allegedly corrupt by organized criminals. In Eastern Russia,
mafioso's were recently caught supplying a legal hardwood to Americans,
(21:19):
eventually selling stolen wood to your local lumber liquidator's store.
The stories go on. A governor in Peru, the vice
president of Gabon, the environment minister in Brazil. According to
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, most government
workers who get caught committing wildlife crimes are just foot soldiers,
(21:41):
a third are police, nineteen percent work in administration, and
seven percent are elected officials. To von Bismarck, he could
understand why someone on the lower rungs might be seduced
by illegal logging. They need the money.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I think you have different motivations, and you have different
situations along this.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Chain, but it's those with power, those with money, that
he's most disappointed by.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Those are the decision makers in that chain that are
particularly tragic, that have the power to say no and
don't do it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
In Zambia, high level government, while giving speeches about the
dangers of the makola trade, were not only in direct
talks with the traffickers, but we're extorting them. EIA agents
talked to one Chinese trafficker who complained that the bribes
were so high that only wealthy traffickers could afford them.
Speaker 10 (22:42):
The export permit is very expensive, actually, to some extent,
is more expensive than buying the product and bringing it
here to Lusaka, because that's how Zifhko has done it.
If they are telling you to produce fifteen thousand dollars,
where do I get that money? It means they are
(23:05):
telling me don't do the business. That it is for
the big boys.
Speaker 12 (23:12):
So fifteen thousand dollars is the price you have to
pay for the document? Yes, okay, So does the government
actually have that money, Does that go into the country
or does it just get pocketed.
Speaker 10 (23:22):
That's for the big boys. They want to make money themselves.
It's not for everyone. It's for them, the big boys
and the big girls.
Speaker 9 (23:34):
Are there just a few big people or many a few.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I think just five, just five people all the way
at the top, making fifteen thousand dollars per illegal permit.
So agents kept plugging to see if they could get
names besides gen Kappata and the Justice minister, and they
got one Lungu Tasila lunguores.
Speaker 9 (24:07):
Everything.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
The mccula scheme was far bigger than Zaffago and much
bigger than a few dirty ministers. It went all the
way to the top, to the President's daughter and to
the President of Zambia, Edgar Lungo himself. According to these
MKULA dealers, the daughter was allegedly the glue of the operation,
(24:31):
the vital person linking most traffickers with the highest level
of government, including the president.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
They have Mukula take it devided by the dutta of
the man, the dutta of the president.
Speaker 11 (24:45):
Whatever comes, she gets faced.
Speaker 9 (24:47):
Or fists, so someone pays to the president.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
The answer, they alleged was yes, I don't.
Speaker 10 (24:54):
Give money to the president directly. I bred those who
are above minister's.
Speaker 12 (24:59):
Level, above the ministers, so you don't have to pay
the ministers.
Speaker 10 (25:03):
I have a good connection with people around president who
collect money for him.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
According to a report by the Zambia newspaper News Diggers,
the president allegedly surrounded himself with people who collected money
on his behalf, people who acted quote like the president's housekeeper.
Another person in the conspiracy who worked in government, explained
it succinctly, quote we are protected by the party, by
(25:31):
the government.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
The corruption was so high level that the paperwork could
be really seem pristine enough to get through even neighboring
countries that are supposed to not allow that trade.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
So here's a fun fact. In Zambia, you could go
to jail for three years for criticizing the president. The
country's libel laws are a strict clamp on the freedom
of the press, preventing everybody from opinion call to TV satirist,
even regular citizens from criticizing the head of state. So
(26:06):
when the EIA's report came out, they got sued.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
A few individuals ever mentioned in the report sued us
for libel and we made clear that we stand entirely
by the evidence that is very plainly available in the report.
Since then there's been more evidence, evidence that has been
presented that really corroborates the findings.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Zaffaco has denied any wrongdoing. Gene Kapita, who currently is
being investigated under corruption charges, has called the EIA's report fake,
and to Sila Lungu, the president's daughter who is reportedly
at the center of the cabal, stated I have not,
at any juncture been involved in either of the alleged
(26:54):
criminal transactions. And beyond putting Zambia's political leaders on the defensive,
EIA's work sent shockwaves elsewhere too. In twenty nineteen, it's
reporting helped make mcuola an internationally protected species. Unfortunately, the
illegal trade appears to continue. For every micuola tree Zambia
(27:19):
claims to send, China receives about six and those numbers
just don't add up.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
The demand is still there, so the motive is not
entirely removed, and so the question is do we put
the mechanisms in place to be able to.
Speaker 9 (27:38):
Stay on top of it.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
The micuola trade in Zambia brings in an estimated seven
point five million dollars in bribes every year. To stop it,
the first aim is to educate people. People like you
and me.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
So it's right to point fingers and some real criminal elements,
but we have to be very aware of our own role.
US consumers and European consumers are incredible financiers of the
same kind of destruction and corruption. Because they don't, we
don't have the motivation to ask the extra question of
(28:13):
where does our furniture come from? What is really the
impact at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
In the meantime, places like the EIA are coming up
with tricks to stop the trade.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
In some places, we had some great breakthroughs. In Romania,
for example, ethical hackers worked on a system that allows
you to see every logging truck move in real time
and tested against other data sets to determine its legality.
We've seen now in places that were beset by illegal
(28:46):
logging the really mind blowing opportunity to take a picture
of a logging truck's license plate and within seconds be
able to determine whether that truck was legal or illegal.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Those technologies can be game changers, but so can the
ballot box. Today Zambia has a new president and new ministers.
Time and investigations will tell if the culture might change
with them.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
It's about political will and I think we can do
it if people want to.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Coming up.
Speaker 9 (29:24):
The plants that occur here, many of them her nowhere
else in the world.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
The vote underground is actually within half me to thick
reinforced concrete. The idea was it could withstand a plane
going down.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
They hated him down in Brazil. They thought you had
raped the nation. He was the devil incarnate.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I'm Summer rain Oaks join us again next time for
Bad Seeds. Bad Seeds is a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host Mriine Oakes. Lucas
Riley is our writer, Gabby Watts is our producer, and
Amelia Brock is our senior producer. Fact Checking is by
(30:08):
Savannah Hugely and Zoe Farrow. Original music is by Claire Campbell.
Sound design and score is by Jesse Niswanger. Our show
art is by Pam Peacock. Development was by Brian Lavin
and Jacob Selzer. Special thanks to our voice actors Kate Lew,
Carl Zoo, Patrick Matukua, Muiza Simwanza, Amo Sakapu, Suzie Zulu
(30:31):
and Lee Sandford. Executive producers are Brian Lavin, Elsie Crowley,
Brandon Barr, Virginia Prescott, and Jacob Selzer
School of humans.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Pterocarpus tinctorius is a slow growing evergreen native to the
heart of southern Africa. It goes by many names padoucta, frek, barwood,
and belle, and in Zambia locals call it micula. Micula
is a defining feature of Zambia's landscape. It attracts pollinating bees,
(00:31):
provides leafy greens for chips and columbus monkeys, and is
a major source of shade in rural villages. And its wood,
as my friend Alan Schwartz has told me, is undeniably beautiful.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
The thing about that janctorius is it's intensely red. It
really really is bright, and that bright red color losts
for a very long time.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
That beautiful red makes micula an attractive material for luxury furniture,
cabinets and floors.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It is extremely desirable in China and Vietnam. The price
of it is insanely high.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
But the tree's desirability has been its curse.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I don't think there's any left of it in the
north of Nigeria or Cameroon. In the far north of Mozambique,
on the border with Tanzania, there will probably no more
than about two thousand cubes of standing timber, and literally
within one season all of that was gone.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And what's extra creepy about it is that when you
cut down a micola, beads of dark red sap ooze
to the surface.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Mokula means the tree that bleeds, the.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Tree that bleeds. For Laggers, rosewoods are like gold. In fact,
the UN estimates that between two thousand and five and
twenty fourteen, about thirty five percent of the place and
its seized wildlife was rosewood, not ivory, not tiger bone. Rosewood. Today,
(02:09):
Lagger's eyemacola as the next big thing. Within the past decade,
they flocked to groves in Zambia. Just a few years ago,
you only had to drive thirty miles outside of Zambia's
capital city of Lusaka to find towering patches of mikula.
Now the closest large population is more than six hundred
(02:32):
miles away. The Zambian government has tried to stop illegal cutting.
They've enacted a series of on again, off again restrictions
in hopes of saving the tree. Now, Alexander von Bismarck,
the guy from the last episode at the Environmental Investigation Agency.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Explains Zambia responded to to really public pressure by implementing
their own zero export quota or effectively a.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Ban, but it didn't stick.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Those bands were not worth the paper they were written on.
Container after container was flowing out of Zambia to China
for their demand for this red wood for redwood furniture
and China.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
In a twenty seventeen speech, one government official stepped up
to ask why.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
The GOVERNMENTI has a putt sit regent recitrication in place,
but it was a surprise. The logging and continuous. Who
does the government te think is the many cow pretty
in activity?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
That is a good question. So in twenty seventeen, the
Environmental Investigation Agency went undercover. They cooked up aliases pretending
to be investors and timber traders. They wore secret cameras
and microphones, and they plunged into the forest and snuck
around high rise offices. They found shocked everybody. I'm Summer
(04:04):
rain Oaks from School of Humans and iHeart podcasts. This
is bad seeds. To understand what's happening in Zambia, you
have to know about an event that rocked China twenty
five years ago. It's nineteen ninety eight and the forecast
(04:29):
calls for rain. First comes El Nino and then without
any break, La Nina. As rain pours, sheets of snow
on the Chinghai to bat Plateau start to melt, draining
into China's rivers. The yank Sea, sung Hua and Nintiyong
(04:50):
rivers swell, and for the next sixty days, floods swallow
farmland and destroy homes, hospitals, and schools. More than thirty
seven hundred people die, fifteen million are left homeless, just
(05:15):
as many farmers lose their crops, and a total of
two hundred and twenty three million people. Then a fifth
of China's population is affected. But when it comes time
to assess the damage, Chinese officials do not blame the
excess rainfall. They look to the past. Because for the
previous half century, China had clear cut its woodlands. In
(05:39):
some parts, fifty percent of the forest had disappeared. The
deforestation caused soil to erope. Vast blankets of silt drained
into the waterways and settled, making rivers more shallow. The
country's waterways couldn't hold as much rain as they used to.
(06:00):
In other words, had helped cause the floods. The government
swiftly banned logging in the country's natural forests. They started
a major replanting program, and they restricted logging to a
handful of state owned farms. It was one of the
most dramatic conservation policies ever enacted, but it had consequences
(06:26):
because the country's thirst for timber did not diminish. It
soon became the world's top importer of wood.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
In the words of forest Trends in Ngo, the vision
for a greener China may end up exporting environmental damage
to other more vulnerable countries, among them Zambia.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Demand from China for the Mukula tree was overwhelming and
was devastating that population of tree, and that it was
clear that it wasn't going to be long before it
would be economically extinct and ultimately biologically extinct.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
In Zambia, trees are a big economic driver. The forestry
sector employs one point one million people and contributes to
more than five percent of the country's GDP. It's such
a big deal that in Andola, the Premier League soccer
club is called the Forest Rangers. The fees collected from
(07:32):
forestry are important too. They help build hospitals and schools
and keep the economy humming. As a result, most people
in Zambia understand that it's important to harvest trees at
a healthy pace. Overlogging could destroy all of this economic
momentum because no trees means no money.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
The concern is that it really threatens the economic future
of the country. Deforestation is identified as one of the
major threats to zambia sustainability, to agriculture, to ecosystem services
that are given to everybody by the landscape.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Preventing deforestation is an economic priority and one of the
groups responsible for helping that mission is the Zambia Forestry
and forest Industries Corporation, better known as ZAFFACO.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
That is a longstanding company in Zambia that was really
controlled by state officials.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Zaffaco employs thousands of people and manages fifty thousand hectores
of plantations where it grows pine and eucalyptus, making things
like utility poles and fences. On their website, a slick
corporate values page states we put Zaffaico's obligations above our
personal interests and conduct ourselves in a manner that is
(08:54):
beyond reproach. Now around twenty sixteen, Zaffaco was on the
forefront of stopping the illegal theft of micula. The Zambian
government had banned logging micula. When the FED seized illegal shipments,
they handed it over to Zaffaco, who auctioned off the logs.
(09:14):
The thinking went, if we catch you cutting micula, we'll
take those logs from you. You'll get no money and
then we the public will enjoy your profits. As one
Zambian politician.
Speaker 6 (09:27):
Put it, the people need to benefit from their trees.
They just can't experience the deferstration for nothing. Let mukula
revenue build hospitals with mantilla doings.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Zaffaco reported that they made four point three million dollars
from the first seizure, all of it going to important
state services.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
To where it is desperately needed, to schools, to hospitals,
to infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
In twenty seventeen, the country tightened the clamp even more,
banning movement of micula locks. In a speech, ze Mbia's
Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Jean Kapita, made it clear.
Speaker 7 (10:05):
Zambia is not going to allow any transit of mukula
logs on each soil.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The borders suddenly choked with trucks hauling timber. Once again,
the same story played out. The logs were seized, Zaffago
gained control, it auctioned them off for the people's benefit.
In government, Minister Kapita rejoiced in the ban.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
The Mukula tree is too valuable to be left to
a small part of the population to reap the benefits.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Many Zambians applauded the effort too. They didn't know that
undercover agents with the Environmental Investigation Agency had discovered that
Zaffago was engaged in a cover up.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
We just heard the alarm calls four years ago or so,
and there was really outrage on the ground by the
people for what was having happening to their forest.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Just listen to one of their secretly recorded conversations.
Speaker 8 (11:06):
If you really follow the trained in Zambia, individuo Chinese
companies of quoting export paymits. Now the ones that are
responsible in the facilitation of these export paymits, it is
afficos just some very well to some mixed I must conface.
Speaker 9 (11:25):
It's just this Smoka.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Taio Zaffaco was quote a small cartel. In the same
secret recording, the source had even harsher.
Speaker 8 (11:34):
Words and that you felt it all comes as just
the contuit of crime.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
A conduit of crime. The state had a dirty secret.
Zaffaca wasn't just seizing a legal locks. Zaffaca was also
cutting them down and then sneaking them into the stockpile
of seized locks. Zaffaco, in other words, was using the
seizures as a cover.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
It was the chief mechanism for getting the wood out
of the country to China with a veneer of legality.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
So much for that slick company values page saying they'd
put their obligations above their personal interests. The question agents
had was who in government was behind the cover up.
To find out, they would have to go deeper. In
(12:36):
twenty seventeen, undercover sleuths from the Environmental Investigation Agency began
tapping into Zambia's illegal macula trade. Understandably, Von Bismarck couldn't
give us too many details of how exactly his agency
managed to infiltrate the illicit logging operation.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
We have to protect our sources, particularly in the cases
where the corruption is so serious that it is really
very dangerous for anybody that speaks up. But generally an
investigation like this we tend to go undercover to talk
to people along the supply chain as fellow.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Traders, pretending to be an interested buyer. An ei A
agent sat down with the macula trafficker with of course
his trustee recorder rolling.
Speaker 9 (13:25):
So what you're here? First, you trotter par so work.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
The agent's voice is obscured for his safety, which is
why it's kind of hard to understand.
Speaker 9 (13:41):
We're concerning broke. Is that off or is utigal or legal?
It is illegal?
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I bet this is h Sursport Sylvie.
Speaker 9 (13:52):
Now it's over people.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
The trafficker tells the agent that macoola trading is his
business and although it's illegal, it's open. The EIA would
have many more conversations like this, such as this one
with a Chinese trafficker. We had some actors translate.
Speaker 9 (14:14):
Are there still a lot of macola trees out there?
Speaker 10 (14:16):
If we keep logging like this? In two years all
mcoola trees will be logged in North Province.
Speaker 9 (14:24):
So they're almost extinct.
Speaker 10 (14:25):
Almost five years ago you see mcola everywhere East Province,
everywhere you go. Basically now there is nothing.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
It's interesting when you're just having a conversation with traffickers,
you know, it's kind of shooting the breeze. Business to business,
you do often find people who are conflicted. We had
traffickers talk about that it's very clear that that species
is going to be gone very soon. So in the
context of those kind of conversations that were recorded, the
(14:58):
truth from really multiple well placed sources, meaning traders, people
doing the work, the truth became pretty clear.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Indeed, as the agency crept through the underworld, they discovered
all the ways Zaffago laundered illegal wood. One way was
through phony permits.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
If you are a corrupt official, there are a lot
of ways you can use permits. Even when theoretically cutting
is not allowed, you have the ability to use all
kinds of paperwork to allow that wood to move. Hey,
you've got a band in place, but this is an
exceptional permit or a special permit, or it is covering
(15:44):
maybe a fallen wood from a storm.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
In the words of one trafficker whose testimony is in
the EIA's final report, Zaffago was even in charge of
some logging.
Speaker 11 (15:55):
It's always their own locked wood. They'll handle the logging.
After you paid, you go to their concession and load
your trucks. They will handle the exporting permit and you're
good to go.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
The report says that Zaffaco was quote allowing anyone with
enough money and high level connections to secretly export freshly
cut makola logs out of Zambia. The anyone with enough
money bit is key. Another trafficker stated.
Speaker 10 (16:26):
If you are not willing to pay, I won't be
able to get you this permit. Mukula itself does not
cost a loss of money, only five thousand dollars per container.
Transport costs another eight thousand US dollars. The rest is
government fees.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
By fees, he means bribes.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Getting those permits ended up costing around fifteen thousand dollars,
so more than half of the value of a container
was spent on getting these illegal permits. Making payments to
officials to cover for entirely illegally stolen.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Would and there was really only one way to even
pay those bribes.
Speaker 10 (17:14):
If you have connections with higher level relations, you can
get an export permit with Zipico.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
You needed to know people with high level relations. Zaffaco,
in other words, was not just a government agency that
had gone rogue. The fake permits were coming from higher up, and,
as one trafficker described, only for special people.
Speaker 9 (17:45):
You could hold you with higher.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Help you of course number three number.
Speaker 9 (17:53):
Or meeting.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
That audio is tough to hear, so if you missed
any the traffickers justs that you have to be connected
to the country's third highest government official, Zambia's then Justice minister.
That's when von Bismarck realized something that the bans on
Micula were part of an even greater conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Controls were simply used by the most powerful to control
the trade, rather than to actually stop the trade. It
was being used really as a way to limit the
trade to the most powerful.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
The EIA realized if it was going to get to
the bottom of the Mcula heist, its agents would have
to work their way up to the highest rungs of
Zambia's government. It started by finding a foot soldier among
the country's political elite.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I am in the system.
Speaker 11 (18:49):
I wake in the system, I wake in the governments.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
The government worker offered agents help with paperwork, export permits, certificates,
all of it illegal, and he didn't stop there. The
worker explained how the logs would be shipped, where they'd
be shipped, the corrupt customs agent they'd meet at the port,
and how to properly misdeclare the wood on documents to
trick clean agents, but you still needed approval from higher up.
(19:17):
You had to pay so called fee. When agents talked
with a Chinese trafficker, they got some helpful advice on
who exactly to talk to.
Speaker 9 (19:29):
How did you get the logs out?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
We are one of the three exputters who got the
permise there. We were able to get containers out of
Zambia since then.
Speaker 9 (19:39):
So you've been shipping out for a year.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yes, we had been in this business for over ten
years in Zambia.
Speaker 12 (19:46):
Did you mention last time that you were partnering with
the Minister of Land and Natural Resources? Yes, female minister. Yes,
her name is Capita.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yes, Jeane Capita, the Minister of Land Lands and Natural Resources,
the same person who you might remember gave a speech
in Poland celebrating the mccoola band calling the wood quote
too valuable for just a small part of the population
to reap the benefits. It turns out that small part
(20:15):
of the population she was a part of it. I
want to share two numbers with you that are going
to make you see the world a little differently. Fifteen
(20:35):
to thirty. That is fifteen to thirty percent of all
the wood on the market right now is illegal.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Throughout human history, for as have been a real problem
because they're difficult to know what's going on inside them,
and when you have huge demand on one side of
the world for a certain tree in a deep forest,
it still becomes pretty easy to steal it.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Corruption is everyone. In Romania, the police tasked with monitoring
illegal logging, that is, the group designed to track corruption,
are themselves allegedly corrupt by organized criminals. In Eastern Russia,
mafioso's were recently caught supplying a legal hardwood to Americans,
(21:19):
eventually selling stolen wood to your local lumber liquidator's store.
The stories go on. A governor in Peru, the vice
president of Gabon, the environment minister in Brazil. According to
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, most government
workers who get caught committing wildlife crimes are just foot soldiers,
(21:41):
a third are police, nineteen percent work in administration, and
seven percent are elected officials. To von Bismarck, he could
understand why someone on the lower rungs might be seduced
by illegal logging. They need the money.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I think you have different motivations, and you have different
situations along this.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Chain, but it's those with power, those with money, that
he's most disappointed by.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Those are the decision makers in that chain that are
particularly tragic, that have the power to say no and
don't do it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
In Zambia, high level government, while giving speeches about the
dangers of the makola trade, were not only in direct
talks with the traffickers, but we're extorting them. EIA agents
talked to one Chinese trafficker who complained that the bribes
were so high that only wealthy traffickers could afford them.
Speaker 10 (22:42):
The export permit is very expensive, actually, to some extent,
is more expensive than buying the product and bringing it
here to Lusaka, because that's how Zifhko has done it.
If they are telling you to produce fifteen thousand dollars,
where do I get that money? It means they are
(23:05):
telling me don't do the business. That it is for
the big boys.
Speaker 12 (23:12):
So fifteen thousand dollars is the price you have to
pay for the document? Yes, okay, So does the government
actually have that money, Does that go into the country
or does it just get pocketed.
Speaker 10 (23:22):
That's for the big boys. They want to make money themselves.
It's not for everyone. It's for them, the big boys
and the big girls.
Speaker 9 (23:34):
Are there just a few big people or many a few.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I think just five, just five people all the way
at the top, making fifteen thousand dollars per illegal permit.
So agents kept plugging to see if they could get
names besides gen Kappata and the Justice minister, and they
got one Lungu Tasila lunguores.
Speaker 9 (24:07):
Everything.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
The mccula scheme was far bigger than Zaffago and much
bigger than a few dirty ministers. It went all the
way to the top, to the President's daughter and to
the President of Zambia, Edgar Lungo himself. According to these
MKULA dealers, the daughter was allegedly the glue of the operation,
(24:31):
the vital person linking most traffickers with the highest level
of government, including the president.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
They have Mukula take it devided by the dutta of
the man, the dutta of the president.
Speaker 11 (24:45):
Whatever comes, she gets faced.
Speaker 9 (24:47):
Or fists, so someone pays to the president.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
The answer, they alleged was yes, I don't.
Speaker 10 (24:54):
Give money to the president directly. I bred those who
are above minister's.
Speaker 12 (24:59):
Level, above the ministers, so you don't have to pay
the ministers.
Speaker 10 (25:03):
I have a good connection with people around president who
collect money for him.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
According to a report by the Zambia newspaper News Diggers,
the president allegedly surrounded himself with people who collected money
on his behalf, people who acted quote like the president's housekeeper.
Another person in the conspiracy who worked in government, explained
it succinctly, quote we are protected by the party, by
(25:31):
the government.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
The corruption was so high level that the paperwork could
be really seem pristine enough to get through even neighboring
countries that are supposed to not allow that trade.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
So here's a fun fact. In Zambia, you could go
to jail for three years for criticizing the president. The
country's libel laws are a strict clamp on the freedom
of the press, preventing everybody from opinion call to TV satirist,
even regular citizens from criticizing the head of state. So
(26:06):
when the EIA's report came out, they got sued.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
A few individuals ever mentioned in the report sued us
for libel and we made clear that we stand entirely
by the evidence that is very plainly available in the report.
Since then there's been more evidence, evidence that has been
presented that really corroborates the findings.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Zaffaco has denied any wrongdoing. Gene Kapita, who currently is
being investigated under corruption charges, has called the EIA's report fake,
and to Sila Lungu, the president's daughter who is reportedly
at the center of the cabal, stated I have not,
at any juncture been involved in either of the alleged
(26:54):
criminal transactions. And beyond putting Zambia's political leaders on the defensive,
EIA's work sent shockwaves elsewhere too. In twenty nineteen, it's
reporting helped make mcuola an internationally protected species. Unfortunately, the
illegal trade appears to continue. For every micuola tree Zambia
(27:19):
claims to send, China receives about six and those numbers
just don't add up.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
The demand is still there, so the motive is not
entirely removed, and so the question is do we put
the mechanisms in place to be able to.
Speaker 9 (27:38):
Stay on top of it.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
The micuola trade in Zambia brings in an estimated seven
point five million dollars in bribes every year. To stop it,
the first aim is to educate people. People like you
and me.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
So it's right to point fingers and some real criminal elements,
but we have to be very aware of our own role.
US consumers and European consumers are incredible financiers of the
same kind of destruction and corruption. Because they don't, we
don't have the motivation to ask the extra question of
(28:13):
where does our furniture come from? What is really the
impact at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
In the meantime, places like the EIA are coming up
with tricks to stop the trade.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
In some places, we had some great breakthroughs. In Romania,
for example, ethical hackers worked on a system that allows
you to see every logging truck move in real time
and tested against other data sets to determine its legality.
We've seen now in places that were beset by illegal
(28:46):
logging the really mind blowing opportunity to take a picture
of a logging truck's license plate and within seconds be
able to determine whether that truck was legal or illegal.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Those technologies can be game changers, but so can the
ballot box. Today Zambia has a new president and new ministers.
Time and investigations will tell if the culture might change
with them.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
It's about political will and I think we can do
it if people want to.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Coming up.
Speaker 9 (29:24):
The plants that occur here, many of them her nowhere
else in the world.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
The vote underground is actually within half me to thick
reinforced concrete. The idea was it could withstand a plane
going down.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
They hated him down in Brazil. They thought you had
raped the nation. He was the devil incarnate.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I'm Summer rain Oaks join us again next time for
Bad Seeds. Bad Seeds is a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host Mriine Oakes. Lucas
Riley is our writer, Gabby Watts is our producer, and
Amelia Brock is our senior producer. Fact Checking is by
(30:08):
Savannah Hugely and Zoe Farrow. Original music is by Claire Campbell.
Sound design and score is by Jesse Niswanger. Our show
art is by Pam Peacock. Development was by Brian Lavin
and Jacob Selzer. Special thanks to our voice actors Kate Lew,
Carl Zoo, Patrick Matukua, Muiza Simwanza, Amo Sakapu, Suzie Zulu
(30:31):
and Lee Sandford. Executive producers are Brian Lavin, Elsie Crowley,
Brandon Barr, Virginia Prescott, and Jacob Selzer
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