This is a sound of an environmental catastrophe. It's approaching midnight deep inside the second

of forests we are with the lagers and have just started axing the rosewood tree. The noise of the axe is echoing into the wilderness.

We are in the forests of Kazamont's southern Senegal,

just a few kilometers from the border with Gambia.

The illegal lagers were following marked out this tree over a hundred years old days ago. I'm Umaru Fofana and this is assignments on the BBC

World Service. For months now I've been working with the BBC Africa I team investigating the trade in trafficked Rosewood.

It's a story of cross-border smuggling and corruption.

The trade is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

It's fast approaching two o'clock in the morning, very cold here deep in the forest.

We've been here for several hours.

We've seen so many stumps of rosewood trees, some of them freshly cut ones. I'd try to think what they could have done with a chain saw. As a rosewood tree dies, its unique red sap bleeds out from the cut of the axe.

It's dangerous work, but it's a risk many across West Africa are prepared to take.

Because of a huge price, this would command overseas.

I know that it's forbidden to lock a rose wood that I have a little choice because

this is the fastest way to get the money the other jobs we do here, you earn little money and at a slow pace.

Osmond, not his real name, is one of the thousands of Senegalese tempted into breaking the

law. It's a long cold night by the

fire with only local sugary tea called attire to drink. Usually we do not dare to come into this forest because of the speculations that spirits live in the trees.

But after we saw the Gambandons we now come logging too.

Each trunk is cut into two meter logs which makes them harder to trace. The

lagers know they will need to fit into a shipping container that will travel

nearly halfway around the world to China. It's a trade that is corrupting communities and

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