Illegal timber exports are among the biggest environmental crimes. In Namibia, a new analysis centre is to help to scientifically determine wood species and origin. In this way, authorities want to prevent protected stocks from disappearing via international trade routes. Namibia's rosewood stocks in the northeast of the country have been the target of international smuggling networks for years. As an important transit country in the timber trade in southern Africa, Namibia is now increasingly relying on forensic technology to detect illegal deliveries and better secure the export of legal products. The focus is on the establishment of a Centre for Wood Identification and Analysis (WISC) in Windhoek. The centre is intended to help authorities such as the police (Nampol), the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) and the tax authority (NamRA) to scientifically identify wood species and check whether accompanying documents correspond to the actual composition of the goods. The illegal trade in timber products is one of the biggest environmental crimes in the world. The main problem is that wood can be transported across borders and provided with forged papers. This makes it easy to pass off illegal products as legal in international trade. Unique "fingerprints": This is where chemical fingerprint analysis comes in. It examines the molecular composition of a wood sample. Since trees absorb minerals and trace elements from soil and water, a characteristic pattern is created in the wood, i.e. a kind of unique "fingerprint" that allows conclusions to be drawn about the species and origin.