Western Australia dominates the world supply of fragrant Sandalwood, but now it faces its biggest challenger yet … itself. Source: WA Today
Plantation sandalwood will soon be mature enough to harvest and begin to compete against wild sandalwood. And the state government is now calling for submissions from all stakeholders in the sandalwood industry to have their say in the future of the industry.
Forestry Minister Mia Davies said the existing industry structure had been in place since 1988 and it was time to take stock.
“It’s timely to review sales and marketing arrangements with current contracts coming to an end,” she said.
The minister said the introduction of plantation sandalwood into the market over the next 10 years meant the industry needed to carefully manage and protect its high value wild sandalwood markets.
“Our primary focus is our wild sandalwood over the next 10 years, but we are mindful that plantation resource will become available during this time,” Ms Davies said.
“We want to ensure the structure we create could also support private growers and the introduction of this wood into the marketplace.”
Conservation groups have welcomed the review of the wild sandalwood industry.
Campaign coordinator Peter Robertson from the Wilderness Society said the recent parliamentary inquiry into management of the sandalwood industry had called for an urgent reduction in the amount of mature sandalwood being taken from WA’s rangelands.
“We have been over-exploiting this beautiful native species for decades and the outcome of this review ought to be the rapid phasing out of wild sandalwood extraction,” he said.
Mr Robertson said it was a tragedy how much mature sandalwood had been stripped out of large parts of southern WA and there had been very little successful regeneration of the species to even begin to make up for the loss.
“This is a classic example of an industry that has been allowed to grow for short term profit without proper assessment, management and regulation,” he said.
Some 20,000 hectares of sandalwood have been planted throughout the state and each year some 2000 tonnes of natural stands of sandalwood are harvested in WA. The state currently produces more than 60% of the world’s supply of sandalwood products.
Its biggest markets are Taiwan, Hong Kong and China to meet the insatiable demand for the use of sandalwood in joss sticks.
Other significant Asian markets include Malaysia, Singapore, India and Thailand.
Native WA sandalwood was first exported to China in 1844 as a powder to produce incense. At that time it was worth 50% more than wool. Its peak export came in 1920 when 14,355 tonnes were exported.
WA’s sandalwood industry is managed by the government’s Forest Products Commission.