71
vessels load and export charcoal or timber, including rose-
wood. Internet listings reveal over 1,900 charcoal dealers in
Africa alone, at least 300 officially exporting minimum orders
of 10–20 tons of charcoal per shipment. The actual number
is likely to be many times higher, and minimum daily orders
for many individual exporters exceed the official total annual
exports from some countries. For East, Central and West
Africa, the net profits from dealing and taxing unregulated,
illicit or illegal charcoal combined is estimated at a range of
2.4–9 billion USD,
151
compared to an estimated (European)
combined street value of heroin in the East African market
and cocaine in the west African market, worth USD 2.65
billion.
152
This indicates a vast illicit, unregulated trade in
charcoal, involving illegal logging often in protected areas,
large-scale deforestation, involvement of organized dealers
and trans boundary shipments, including to other continents.
