Illegal sandalwood trade growing even in Western Australia

A programme made by the "ABC News" of Australia revealed that the illegal sandalwood trade is very high in Western Australia which has a slow growing native sandalwood species called Australian sandalwood. This species, scientifically known as Santalum spicatum growing in arid and semi-arid zones plays a significant role in their economy. The Forestry Products Commission of Western Australia has launched a sustainable sandalwood harvesting programme from the wild under strict monitoring of scientists and the government has appointed one private company called Wescorp Sandalwood Pty Ltd for processing those wood. At the same time, those scientists try hard to increase the sandalwood resources in the country.

The value of Australian sandalwood timber metric ton is about 150,000.00 dollars and therefore it has grabbed the attention of the greed who are looking for quick money. The programme made by the ABC News started with a raid of a group of sandalwood poachers who came into the wild for harvesting sandalwood trees with machinery and camping gears. They pull out all large sandalwood trees which were grown over hundreds of years without thinking about the sustainability.

According to the news, 300 MT of sandalwood timber are illegally harvested each year in Western Australia and since March 2012, the authorities were able to capture 170 MT. The view of the public is that the current law and fine system are not adequate for saving this valuable resource and therefore the government is in the process of reconsidering those aspects.

A fully grown Australian sandalwood tree

The entire programme can be viewed by the following link.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-30/illegal-sandalwood-trade-in-wa/4342570