RESEARCH SEMINAR: George M. Bob-Milliar

Speaker: George M. Bob-Milliar, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Title of talk: Ecological crimes in the savannah: Illegal logging and trafficking of rosewood in Ghana

Abstract: What explains the ineffectiveness of government bans on the export of rosewood from Ghana? CITIES classifies the African rosewood as an endangered tree species. It is found throughout the Savannah and Forest-Savannah Transition Ecological Zones of Africa. Between 2012 and 2019, Ghana intermittently issued, banned, lifted, and reinstated rosewood harvesting and exports. Yet, the illegal logging and trafficking of rosewood continued in the savannah belt. This paper examines the underworld economy of the rosewood trade in Ghana. Based on data collected using an ethnographic approach from the rosewood hotspots, I argue that the trade in rosewood is non-transparent, and a criminal network along the value chain characterizes it. The informal nature of the rosewood trade saw politically connected individuals plays a significant role in the trade. The government ban on the cutting and export of rosewood encountered several obstacles because smugglers, bureaucrats, and politicians benefit from the illegality. China is the primary market for African rosewood as a replacement for the Asian variety of rosewood, which has gone extinct. The study finds that a very sophisticated scheme involving the granting of salvage permits, political influence (order from above), misclassification and misdeclaration of timber species, deception, use of highway escorts, and forging official documents characterize the underworld economy of rosewood trade in Ghana.

Bio: George M. Bob-Milliar is an Associate Professor at the Department of History and Political Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana. In 2012, he received, as an interdisciplinary scholar, his PhD from the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana. His research lies at the intersection of three disciplines – political science, history, and development studies. His research focus is on, among others, electoral politics in Ghana, informal institutions, social/political history, and African Diaspora. He has had a range of visiting fellowships at institutions such as the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Makerere University, and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). Currently, he is a Senior Research Fellow at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden and an adjunct professor of Center of African Studies at the University of Copenhagen. He edits, among others, African Affairs, African Economic History, and Contemporary Journal of African Studies.