Panama’s illegal rosewood logging boom from Dalbergia retusa

Abstract

Over the last decade, illegal rosewood logging has surged worldwide, with much attributable to an uptick in Chinese demand. For the last seventy-five years, Panama’s main use of cocobolo rosewood (Dalbergia retusa) was in small pieces for artisanal carvings, its state of conservation favoring merchantable timber for recent exploitation with the surging market. Panama’s cocobolo rosewood boom was from 2011 to 2015 and, given regulations, was largely illicit. However, no data on cocobolo logging have been made public. Here, we assess Panama’s cocobolo logging. We used a media analysis of Panamanian and international reports on cocobolo logging from January 2000 to February 2018 coupled with long-term socio-environmental research to show how logging changed during the boom. We conducted a content analysis of articles to address four specific objectives: 1) to assess how cocobolo logging intensity changed over time; 2) to determine what topics related to logging were important for the press to relay to the public; 3) to show how logging changed geographically as the boom progressed; 4) to demonstrate how Panama and the international community responded to the global boom with new policies on rosewood governance. Media reports indicate how cocobolo logging changed over time and space, beginning with the initial logging intensification in 2011 and peaking with the height of global rosewood logging in 2014 and 2015. Media coverage of illegal logging ebbed during the dry season before the May 2014 elections, facilitating illicit logging and subsequent media coverage under a new administration. As logging increased, it moved from selective logging on western private farms to eastern Panama’s forests held by indigenous peoples, including those with insecure tenure. Panama’s series of cocobolo rosewood regulations allowed logging in indigenous lands as well as auctions of seized logs. The removal of so many trees during Panama’s cocobolo boom, ban on cocobolo logging permits, coupled with global restrictions on commercial rosewoods and a Chinese crackdown on corruption curtailed most logging. We conclude by highlighting the role of media for assessing illegal logging in the absence of other data and underscore the difficulties of forest governance and logging controls for rosewoods, especially given the recent loosening of CITES controls for musical instruments.