Episode 7: The Tree That Bleeds

School of humans.

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, 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.

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.

That beautiful red makes micula an attractive material for luxury furniture, cabinets and floors.

It is extremely desirable in China and Vietnam. The price of it is insanely high.

But the tree's desirability has been its curse.

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.

And what's extra creepy about it is that when you cut down a micola, beads of dark red sap ooze to the surface.

Mokula means the tree that bleeds, the.

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, 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.

Explains Zambia responded to to really public pressure by implementing their own zero export quota or effectively a.

Ban, but it didn't stick.

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.

In a twenty seventeen speech, one government official stepped up to ask why.

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?

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 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

Now.

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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.

That is a longstanding company in Zambia that was really controlled by state officials.

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 beyond reproach. Now around twenty sixteen, Zaffaco was on the forefront of stopping the illegal theft of micula. The Zambian

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.

Zaffaco reported that they made four point three million dollars from the first seizure, all of it going to important state services.

To where it is desperately needed, to schools, to hospitals, to infrastructure.

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.

Zambia is not going to allow any transit of mukula logs on each soil.

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.

The Mukula tree is too valuable to be left to a small part of the population to reap the benefits.

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.

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.

Just listen to one of their secretly recorded conversations.

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.

It's just this Smoka.

Taio Zaffaco was quote a small cartel. In the same secret recording, the source had even harsher.

Words and that you felt it all comes as just the contuit of crime.

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.

It was the chief mechanism for getting the wood out of the country to China with a veneer of legality.

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 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.

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.

Traders, pretending to be an interested buyer. An ei A agent sat down with the macula trafficker with of course his trustee recorder rolling.

So what you're here? First, you trotter par so work.

The agent's voice is obscured for his safety, which is why it's kind of hard to understand.

We're concerning broke. Is that off or is utigal or legal? It is illegal?

I bet this is h Sursport Sylvie.

Now it's over people.

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.

Are there still a lot of macola trees out there?

If we keep logging like this? In two years all mcoola trees will be logged in North Province.

So they're almost extinct.

Almost five years ago you see mcola everywhere East Province, everywhere you go. Basically now there is nothing.

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 truth from really multiple well placed sources, meaning traders, people doing the work, the truth became pretty clear.

Indeed, as the agency crept through the underworld, they discovered all the ways Zaffago laundered illegal wood. One way was through phony permits.

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 maybe a fallen wood from a storm.

In the words of one trafficker whose testimony is in the EIA's final report, Zaffago was even in charge of some logging.

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.

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.

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.

By fees, he means bribes.

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.

Would and there was really only one way to even pay those bribes.

If you have connections with higher level relations, you can get an export permit with Zipico.

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.

You could hold you with higher.

Help you of course number three number.

Or meeting.

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.

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.

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.

I am in the system.

I wake in the system, I wake in the governments.

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.

How did you get the logs out?

We are one of the three exputters who got the permise there. We were able to get containers out of Zambia since then.

So you've been shipping out for a year.

Yes, we had been in this business for over ten years in Zambia.

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.

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 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

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.

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, eventually selling stolen wood to your local lumber liquidator's store. The stories go on. A governor in Peru, the vice

I think you have different motivations, and you have different situations along this.

Chain, but it's those with power, those with money, that he's most disappointed by.

Those are the decision makers in that chain that are particularly tragic, that have the power to say no and don't do it.

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.

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 telling me don't do the business. That it is for the big boys.

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.

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.

Are there just a few big people or many a few.

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.

Everything.

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, the vital person linking most traffickers with the highest level of government, including the president.

They have Mukula take it devided by the dutta of the man, the dutta of the president.

Whatever comes, she gets faced.

Or fists, so someone pays to the president.

The answer, they alleged was yes, I don't.

Give money to the president directly. I bred those who are above minister's.

Level, above the ministers, so you don't have to pay the ministers.

I have a good connection with people around president who collect money for him.

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 the government.

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.

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 when the EIA's report came out, they got sued.

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.

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 criminal transactions. And beyond putting Zambia's political leaders on the defensive, EIA's work sent shockwaves elsewhere too. In twenty nineteen, it's

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.

Stay on top of it.

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.

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 where does our furniture come from? What is really the impact at the beginning.

In the meantime, places like the EIA are coming up with tricks to stop the trade.

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 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.

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.

It's about political will and I think we can do it if people want to.

Coming up.

The plants that occur here, many of them her nowhere else in the world.

The vote underground is actually within half me to thick reinforced concrete. The idea was it could withstand a plane going down.

They hated him down in Brazil. They thought you had raped the nation. He was the devil incarnate.

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 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