Hi George,
The new Minister in charge of Forestry has made a stand against to corrupt exploitation of the timber industry and as you rightly point out, thus includes high ranking government officials. Quite unique and "ballsey" for that part of the world. He has made a huge difference in a very short period of time and we are hopeful he can keep the momentum up and not have his efforts scuppered by corrupt parties in senior positions.
Quite a coincidence, I served in the Rhodesia Army the same time you were about and operated extensively in Mozambique - good chance we left our footprints in the same places
Nice chatting and take care
Rob
Thanks for your welcome George and for taking the trouble to look at our websites.
Thankfully after some rigorous campaigning by TCT-Dalmann and a few other concessionaires (timber) the Mozambique Government, last month, legislated stopping all export of logs. Now all exports must be processed/ semi worked prior to export. This will help prevent the wanton pillaging of the forests, mainly by greedy Far East traders.
Once I've settled in and found my way around the site I will offer pen blanks for sale. I currently have an ad running on eBay USA offering a bulk sale of 100 blanks (10 different species x 10) just to try an assess the market but have been disappointed that the ad has only been viewed 10 times in a week?? Must be doing something wrong
Will keep in touch.
Take care
Rob
I'm familiar with some of the Mozambique timbers, my first wife (ex) was born in Mozambique from white Portuguese people and her parents her brought a fair amount of solid wood furniture with them when they left in 1974.
Is great to see a more controlled harvesting of the native trees and you representing the old times where things were all done manually employing so many local workers, I could count 60 on that group pict, I may have missed some "hiding" behind others, they are very shy people, I know...!:biggrin:
It would be most interesting for you to consider cutting some of your woods into pen blanks and offer their sale here on IAP, there are vendors such as myself but there is room for everyone particularly when you offer woods that are not seen in Australia and I believe in the USA, I will have a look at your distributors page shortly so that I can have an idea where your woods are going to.
Best of luck
Cheers
George
I Rob,
I've noticed that you are using the "quote" option wrong in all the posts I saw so far, the right way is very simple to use.
When you want to reply to someone's post and use his original text as a quote, look at the bottom right of the page, just above the "page #'s" and you will see in dark blue the work highlighted "quote", click on it and a new text page will appear where the quoted text appears above, you simply go pass the quote text, give it a space or two and start typing, press "submit reply" and voila...!:biggrin:
In regards to your reply, it has taken a very long time for the Mozambique Government to make some right decisions in regards to illegal logging and the deforestation that has been taken place for well over 50 years, off-corse the illegal trade and the those involved with it, many inside the Government team, is a very difficult situation to resolve, the self-interest and the conflict of interest of those involved will always delay if not "squash" any attempts to correct the situation even with International pressures.
Wood Industry has been one of "greed" since the beginning of industrialisation in many cases taking advantage of the disadvantaged of native populations, that will do anything to make some money, and old trick indeed...!
I support a fair utilisation of natural resources, and this is coming from someone that has cut many hundreds of trees and have spend the best part of 40 years working with wood.
I apologise for getting deep into the issue, I haven't heard the word Mozambique in many many years and for part of a decade and a half, that place was mentioned daily, I did have a small "taste" of it when I spent the last six months on that horrendous and stupid War there, serving the Portuguese Army that ended on 24 April 1974.
Your presence here and the connections to that country has brought me old memories some not that good but, that's life, we live and learn, huh...?
Yes, I would like to keep in touch..!
Cheers
George[/QUOTE]
