Atlantic Council brief warns $2B in West African timber has bankrolled separatists, al-Qaeda affiliates, and ISIS-linked militants - as Beijing's green guidelines go unenforced. Global demand for high-end furniture and decorative veneers, manufactured in enormous Chinese production mills, has driven West African rosewood to become the world's most trafficked illegal wildlife commodity - surpassing ivory, rhinoceros horn, and big-game cats combined in both value and volume. That is according to a policy brief published by the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub, which warns that exports of prized hardwoods totalled $2 billion between 2017 and 2022, with individual logs fetching $20,000 per metric tonne in 2021. "Driven almost entirely by Chinese demand, rosewood is now the world’s most trafficked illegal wildlife product in terms of both value and volume, surpassing ivory and rhinoceros horn combined," the brief states, drawing on evidence gathered across Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, Mali, and Côte d'Ivoire. In Ghana, an estimated 70 per cent of rosewood harvesting falls outside legal channels. Despite an outright export ban, the country shipped 540,000 metric tonnes to China between 2012 and 2019 - equivalent to six million trees and roughly 2,000 acres of forest. Across the border, Cameroon and Nigeria are no better, with illegal harvesting accounting for 65 per cent and 56 per cent of total production, respectively.