Quantifying illegal rosewood trade, seizures and forestry law enforcement in Indonesia

Abstract

Patterns of illicit trafficking networks can be explained by economic, geographic and environmental factors, and has clear implications for forest management. Rosewood is one of the most valuable taxa in the illegal wildlife trade. We focus on its illegal trade in Indonesia. Here, rosewood is not a protected species, but logging is prohibited in protected areas, logging and transportation of rosewood requires permits, and its international trade is subject to CITES regulations. Using seizure data from 2021 to 2023, we test factors explaining seizure patterns at regency level and conduct a baseline analysis of those arrested and the arresting authorities. Seizures (46, for a total of 4302 logs) occurred throughout southern Indonesia, and seizure activity remained constant over time. Regency size, human population, and purchasing power did not correlate with seizure data, but seizures were positively related to the absolute amount and the percentage of forest present in regencies. A third of logs seized came from state-managed or protected forests. Seizures were carried out by the police (23% in collaboration with other authorities; mean seizure of 85 logs), by forestry officers (45% collaboration; mean 138 logs) and by the army (83% collaboration; mean 245 logs). Violation of forestry and job creation laws, and lack of transport documents were the main reasons for arrests. Number of suspects arrested was unrelated to number of logs seized. Successful prosecution was documented for 21–28% of cases, with an average sentencing of 2 years imprisonment and fines of US$29,000. We show that seizure data can be used to provide a first quantitative assessment of rosewood criminal networks and how this links to forest presence and management. While the end destination for much of Indonesia's rosewood is China, our results support the argument that the rosewood trade network in Indonesia is domestically organized rather than internationally orchestrated, and solutions have to be found within Indonesia's forestry policies and regulations.