Costa Rica’s dry tropical forests have been under siege since 2014 from loggers looking to cash in on skyrocketing demand for precious hardwoods, especially cocobolo (Dalbergia retusa), also known as tropical rosewood. The illegal logging of cocobolo and other precious hardwoods threatens Costa Rica’s famous but understaffed national parks as loggers look to protected areas as the last untapped source of valuable lumber for export.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, lists cocobolo under Appendix II — the same category as hammerhead shark fins — in Costa Rica. This means it can be logged in prescribed amounts as long as an impact study determines its extraction is not harmful to the …show more content…
Demand for the lumber and other tropical hardwoods from China and India, though, has outpaced the legal supply. High demand for the lumber has led to illegal logging and debate as to whether or not organized crime is involved in the practice, as well as the export of the wood. Between 2014 and 2015, rangers in the ACG area seized roughly 100,000 inches of cocobolo.
“The illegal logging, trade and export of cocobolo is a serious problem of national interest,” Assistant Environmental Prosecutor José Pablo González said in an email. González said the environmental prosecutor is pursuing several cases but could not comment on them because they are ongoing investigations.
In an email to The Tico Times, the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) office in Liberia, the provincial capital of Guanacaste, denied that there was a criminal organization behind the illegal logging. Park rangers with whom The Tico Times spoke disagreed with the OIJ assessment. Raúl Acevedo, a park ranger with the Guanacaste Conservation Area (ACG) and member of the cocobolo working group, said the illegal harvest was well organized. “The characteristics of the operation are similar to how organized crime operates,” he