Tropical timber is piling up at Gabon's main port as the country's logging industry reels from a corruption scandal that brought down the vice president and ushered in a veteran environmentalist to oversee its forestry.

Wood is big money in the central African nation, which is almost 80 percent covered by forests. The timber industry accounts for 17,000 jobs and 60 percent of non-oil related GDP.

But at the port of Owendo on the Libreville peninsula, exports have stagnated for months and warehouses are overflowing.