In August 2019, the 18th CITES Conference of the Parties adopted
decisions intended to strengthen the capacities of national authorities tocontrol trade in agarwood species. The CITES Secretariat is implementing,or facilitating the implementation of, these decisions, which included acall for a study on agarwood-producing species.

EXPENSIVE, EXPLOITED AND ENDANGERED

Agarwood (also known as eaglewood and gaharu) is produced in several
Asian countries for use in incense, perfume and small carvings. It is formed in
the heartwood of (mainly) Aquilaria and Gyrinops species trees when they
become infected with a type of mould. Prices of up to USD 100 000 per kg
have been recorded for top-quality agarwood, leading to unsustainablelevels of extraction and the listing of all species of Aquilaria and Gyrinops
in Appendix II of CITES since 2004.

51

TECHNICAL SERIE S

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered
A review of the agarwood-producing genera Aquilaria and
Gyrinops: CITES considerations, trade patterns, conservation,and management

OCTOBER 2022

This report on agarwood-producing species, which is jointly published by
ITTO and CITES, examines the cultivation, inoculation technologies andbest management practices of agarwood-producing species and reviews
wild and planted agarwood resources as well as processing technologies,
products and regulatory practices. The report builds on the outcomes andrecommendations of workshops on agarwood convened by ITTO andCITES in 2015, 2018 and 2022.
The most recent workshop, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in June 2022,
was attended by 50 experts from range and importing States withexperience in agarwood management in the wild and in plantations,who critically examined a draft of this report and provided inputs andrecommendations for its finalization. The report and its recommendations
for all stakeholders will be considered at the 19th CITES Conference of
the Parties in November 2022, further contributing to more effective
implementation of CITES provisions for these important tree species.

© ITTO and CITES Secretariat 2022

ITTO TECHNICAL SERIES 51

INTERNATIONAL TROPIC AL TIMBER ORGANIZATIONInternational Organizations Center, 5th Floor, Pacifico-Yokohama, 1-1-1, Minato-Mirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama, 220-0012, Japan
Tel 81-45-223-1110 Fax 81-45-223-1111 Email itto@itto.int Web www.itto.int

INTERNATIONAL TROPICAL TIMBER ORGANIZATIONThis document is printed on recycled paper.

TS51

TECHniCal SEriE S

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered
A review of the agarwood-producing genera Aquilaria and
Gyrinops: CITES considerations, trade patterns, conservation,and management

Ian D. Thompson, Teckwyn Lim and Maman Turjaman

ITTO Technical Series #51

1

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

ITTO Technical Series #51
Preferred citation: Thompson, I.D., Lim, T., and Turjaman, M. 2022. Expensive, Exploited and Endangered.
A review of the agarwood-producing genera Aquilaria and Gyrinops: CITES considerations, trade patterns,
conservation, and management. ITTO Technical Series No. 51. International Tropical Timber Organization(ITTO), Yokohama, Japan.
ITTO is an intergovernmental organization promoting the conservation, restoration and sustainable management,
use and trade of tropical forest resources. Its members represent 80% of the world’s tropical forests and 90% of
the global trade in tropical timber and timber products. ITTO develops internationally agreed policy documents
and guidelines to promote sustainable forest management and forest-based enterprises and assists tropical member
countries to adapt such policies and guidelines to local circumstances and to implement them in the field
through projects. In addition, ITTO collects, analyzes and disseminates data on the production and trade oftropical timber and is the foremost source of information, statistics and trends related to the world tropicaltimber economy. Since it became operational in 1987, ITTO has funded more than 1 200 projects, pre-projects
and activities valued at more than USD 430 million. All projects are funded by voluntary contributions, themajor donors to date being the governments of Japan and the United States of America.
CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is aninternational agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimensof wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.
© ITTO and CITES Secretariat 2022
This work is copyright. Except for the ITTO and CITES logos, graphical and textual information in thispublication may be reproduced in whole or in part provided that it is not sold or put to commercial use andits source is acknowledged.
ISBN 978-4-86507-089-7
Disclaimer
The designations employed and the presentation of material herein do not imply the expression of any
opinion whatsoever concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities
or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers and boundaries.
Front-cover photo: Adult tree of Aquilaria malaccensis, Penang, Malaysia. Photo: Lau Kah Hoo

2

TS51

Contents
Foreword........................................................................................................................................................6
Acknowledgements..........................................................................................................................................7
Abbreviations and acronyms...........................................................................................................................8
Executive summary and recommendations........................................................................................................91 Introduction................................................................................................................................................12
Sources of agarwood..................................................................................................................................12
Distribution and status...............................................................................................................................12
Agarwood production and trade..................................................................................................................14
2 Chronology of CITES COP Decisions, discussions on agarwood and NDF development...................15
Appendix II listing.......................................................................................................................................15
CITES COP Decisions.................................................................................................................................15
COP 14, 2007..............................................................................................................................................15
COP 15, 2010..............................................................................................................................................16
COP 16, 2013..............................................................................................................................................16
COP 17, 2016..............................................................................................................................................16
COP 18, 2019..............................................................................................................................................17
CITES COP Resolutions..............................................................................................................................18
CITES Plants Committee discussions............................................................................................................18
Non-detriment findings..............................................................................................................................19
3 A review of CITES trade data...........................................................................................................................22
The CITES database.....................................................................................................................................22
Leading exporters.........................................................................................................................................22
Leading importers........................................................................................................................................22
The rise of plantation agarwood......................................................................................................................27
Voluntary quotas.........................................................................................................................................27
4 Agarwood products and their trade................................................................................................................28
Forms of agarwood........................................................................................................................................28
Product gradings..........................................................................................................................................28
Oil extraction...............................................................................................................................................29
Markets and prices........................................................................................................................................29
Quality of planation vs. wild agarwood............................................................................................................29
Agarwood product glossary............................................................................................................................30
Illegal trade and enforcement.........................................................................................................................30
Timber tracking and tracing: distinguishing agarwood species and country of origin.............................................32
Distinguishing agarwood from other woods....................................................................................................33
Distinguishing plantation from wild-origin agarwood..................................................................................33
5 Review of standing agarwood-producing tree resources.............................................................................35

3

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

6 Management practices.............................................................................................................................39
Conservation.............................................................................................................................................39
Cultivation techniques................................................................................................................................43
Inoculation of trees to produce agarwood..................................................................................................45
Fungal inoculation...................................................................................................................................46
Chemical induction.................................................................................................................................48
Other techniques........................................................................................................................................48
Insect and diseases in plantations and phytosanitary measures..........................................................................48
Home gardens and smallholder livelihoods......................................................................................................49
7 Conclusions................................................................................................................................................51
8 R ecommendations...................................................................................................................................53
Recommendations for range states.................................................................................................................53
Recommendations for importing countries....................................................................................................53
Recommendations for CITES.....................................................................................................................54
References......................................................................................................................................................55
Appendix: Questionnaire used to gather information in selected range states.............................................61
TablesTable 1: Aquilaria species and Gyrinops spp., IUCN Red List Status, and distribution countries....................13
Table 2: Agarwood (mostly Aquilaria spp.) tree population estimates from various sources............................36
Table 3: Conservation measures taken by the range states..............................................................................40
FiguresFigure 1: Inflorescence of A. malaccensis, Penang, Malaysia............................................................................12
Figure 2: Major exporters of Aquilaria spp. agarwood, showing total exports (of all forms of product reported
in m3, grams, or kg) between 2000-2020 from countries/provinces exporting at least 50 000 kg.....23
Figure 3: Annual Aquilaria spp. agarwood exports (all forms of product reported in m3, grams, or kg)
from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand between 2000-2020..........................................................23
Figure 4: Major exporters of Gyrinops spp. agarwood, showing total exports (all forms of product reported
in m3, grams, or kg) between 2000-2020 from countries/provinces exporting at least 20 000 kg......24
Figure 5: Major importers of Aquilaria spp. agarwood (all forms of product reported in m3, grams or kg),
showing total imports between 2000-2020 for countries importing at least 20 000 kg....................24
Figure 6: Annual Aquilaria spp. agarwood imports into France and the United Kingdom from 2000-2020,reflecting increased use of agarwood in the cosmetics industry in some developed countries...........25
Figure 7: Aquilaria spp. imports into mainland China from 2000-2020........................................................25
Figure 8: Major importers of Gyrinops spp. agarwood (all forms of product reported in m3, grams, or kg),
showing total imports between 2000-2020 into countries/provinces importing at least 20 000 kg ........26
Figure 9: Total wild and plantation Aquilaria spp. exports by all range states 2000–2020 (all products
reported in m3, g, or kg).................................................................................................................26
Figure 10: Shares of individual Aquilaria species among total exports of agarwood products from all range
states from 2000-2020..................................................................................................................28
Figure 11: Shares of individual Gyrinops species among total exports of agarwood products from all range
states from 2000-2020..................................................................................................................28

4

TS51

Figure 12: Illegally harvested Aquilaria tree................................................................................................... 31
Figure 13: Protective cage to stop poachers from cutting agarwood trees....................................................... 31
Figure 14: The Indonesia procedures for collection, registration, and transport of wild agarwood
domestically and for export........................................................................................................... 41
Figure 15: An A. malaccensis plantation in Assam, India................................................................................ 44
Figure 16: Mixed species plantation of A. malaccensis and banana plants in Pontianak,West Kalimantan,
Indonesia...................................................................................................................................... 44
Figure 17: A high density (3500+ stems/ha) A. crassna plantation in Cambodia.............................................46
Figure 18: Inoculation of agarwood using the infusion method at the Forest Research Institute, Malaysia..... 47
Figure 19: Labourers extracting agarwood from Aquilaria spp.trees by hand in Cambodia for further
processing..................................................................................................................................... 49
Box
Box 1: The ITTO-CITES Programme (2007–16) and the CITES Tree Species Programme (2017–22)........ 43

5

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Foreword
Agarwood oil is one of the most precious essential oils originating from South-East Asia and North India.
Agarwood trees, from which it is derived, have been listed on Appendix II of CITES since the ninth meetingof the Conference of the Parties back in 1994.
Since then, the sustainable, legal, and traceable trade of agarwood oil and other derivatives has been a key
focus of CITES’ work on plants in the Asian region. At almost every meeting of the Conference of theParties, or meeting of the CITES Plants Committee, there is an agenda item relating to trade, management,
or conservation of these tree species. There is also a specific CITES Resolution dedicated to this group of
taxa. Agarwood has also been discussed in the context of ITTO and the present report is a testimony to thejoint work on agarwood producing taxa by our two organizations.
After almost three decades of work on agarwood, it is certainly timely to undertake a comprehensive reviewof trade, conservation status, management and propagation of these species. We therefore warmly welcome
the present study titled “Expensive, Exploited and Endangered: A review of the agarwood-producing genera
Aquilaria and Gyrinops: CITES considerations, trade patterns, conservation, and management”.
This report comprehensively discusses the conservation status and trade in agarwood species, takes stock ofprevious CITES work on agarwood, and proposes new priorities to support the sustainable use of agarwoodin the future. For example, it points out that previous work has often focused on artificial propagation of
agarwood-producing tree species. Yet, legal and illegal harvest and trade from wild sources is continuing,
and insufficient management of the wild populations contributes to their continued decline. Lacking
information about the status of tree populations in the wild, most existing export quotas for wild-sourced
specimen seem to not be based on robust science. These and other important insights are useful in guiding thedeliberations among CITES Parties and observers, in particular during the 19th meeting of the Conferenceof the Parties in November 2022 in Panama.
We would like to thank Ian Thompson, Teckwyn Lim and Maman Turjaman for researching and compilingthis study. We also thank Malaysia and in particular the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia for hostinga validation workshop for agarwood range States. Finally, we thank the European Union for funding the
CITES Tree Species Project (CTSP), which enabled this work.
We will continue to support range States in their efforts to ensure sustainable trade in agarwood products.
Ivonne Higuero, Secretary General, CITES
Sheam Satkuru, Executive Director, ITTO
Geneva, Switzerland and Yokohama, Japan
October 2022

6

TS51

Acknowledgements
This report was funded by the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), through the CITES Tree
Species Programme funded by the European Union. The support enabled independent research for this report
to be carried out in Malaysia (by Teckwyn Lim, Noorainie Awang Anak, and Khairul Izdihar Ismail), Indonesia(by Maman Turjaman), India (by Syed Quavi) and Cambodia (by Say Sinly, Chheang, Dany, Hort Sothea, and
Lim Sopheap). Excellent logistical support was provided through ITTO by Steven Johnson and Kanako Ishii.
The authors also wish to acknowledge Dr Milena Sosa-Schmidt, whose depth of knowledge on agarwood (andother endangered plant species) at CITES was instrumental in recognizing the need for this report.

7

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Abbreviations and acronyms
CITES

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Floracm

centimetre(s)COPConference of the Parties

DART-TOFMS

Direct analysis in real time (time of flight) mass spectrometrydbh

diameter at breast heighthahectare(s)ITTO

International Tropical Timber Organization

IUCN

International Union for Conservation of Naturellitre(s)mmetre(s)NDF

Non-detriment findingPEC

2-(2-phenylethyl)chromone

PC

Plants Committee

POC

Province of China

USD

United States dollar(s)SARSpecial Administrative Region

8

TS51

Executive summary and recommendations
Agarwood is a highly valued non-timber forest productproduced primarily in Southeast and South Asia fromtwo main tree genera: Aquilaria and Gyrinops. The
wood is used for cultural, cosmetic, and medicinal
purposes, although most is burned as incense.
All members of both genera (at least 28 species)
are listed in Appendix II of the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species ofWild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and several of the
predominant species are classed in the Red List of
the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) as either critically endangered or endangered,
while several others are recorded as “data deficient”.
Not all species produce agarwood, however, and thetaxonomy of these two genera is not settled, requiring
reassessment to reduce confusion. The declining statusof these trees has resulted from high demand foragarwood that has led to decades of unsustainable
harvesting. The percentage of trees with agarwood in
the wild is likely less than 10%, but unfortunately thetrees are most often cut down to determine whether
agarwood is present.
The most abundant species, A. malaccensis, was listed
by CITES in 1995, with all other species added toAppendix II in 2005. CITES deliberations about
the species have continued, with discussions about
terminologies for products, developing proper nondetriment finding (NDF) reports, whether someproducts should be exempted from regulation, andhow the products are recorded by exporters. The
most contentious issue among exporting countries
is the blanket listing that includes plantation-origin
products, which are not endangered, along with thewild stock, which is declining. A major challenge
remains the difficulty in distinguishing between
wild and plantation agarwood in trade. Recent
research seems to have solved this dilemma using
DNA barcoding and/or gas chromatography/mass
spectrometry. However, the problem for developing
countries is access to the proper equipment, the costof testing, and the need for trained personnel tocarry it out.
The only global data on the export and importof agarwood are from the CITES database, which
records information from export permits submitted
by exporting countries. These data indicate thatmost Southeast and South Asian countries export
raw agarwood, or agarwood products, such as oil,carvings, and incense. Still, most agarwood isexported as chips to Middle Eastern countries,
Singapore and Taiwan Province of China (POC)
for further processing. There are estimates that the
global industry is worth more than USD 30 billion,
with a litre of oil commanding a price of
USD 40 000–50 000. The major exporters of
Aquilaria are Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand,with almost exclusively (more than 98%) wild stockexported from Malaysia and Indonesia, while the woodfrom Thailand is all plantation-origin. The main
countries that import Aquilaria include the United
Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Taiwan
POC. About five times more Aquilaria is exported
on an annual basis than Gyrinops. The major Gyrinops
exporters are Indonesia (including Papua) and Sri
Lanka. Starting in 2017, more plantation-origin
than wild-origin agarwood exports were recorded in
the CITES database. However, plantation agarwood
is apparently of inferior quality and is worth lessthan wild agarwood, so demand for wild stock
remains very high.
The chronic unsustainable harvesting of wild
agarwood seems to have been ignored by governments
in favour of supporting their export industries. As
wild populations have become increasingly depleted,and as a result of the CITES listing, industry andgovernments have responded by developing plantations,especially of A. malaccensis, A. crassna, and A. sinensis.
Plantations are now found throughout South, Eastand Southeast Asia, with very large plantations inIndia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Indonesia,
and China. The total number of plantation trees
may have exceeded 60 million in 2022.
The science of producing plantation agarwood has
advanced considerably since the initial listing of
Aquilaria by CITES. Research has focused on thefungi that cause agarwood to form as part of a tree’s
natural defense mechanisms. In wild trees, wounds
and infection result from ants and wood-boring
insects that import fungi and other pathogens into
the trees. The trees react by producing resin that
contains a large array of aromatic chemicals andhardens to form agarwood. Plantation operators
duplicate the process by drilling holes in the trees
and introducing fungal inoculants identified as
those which cause agarwood to form. As a result ofresearch and trial-and-error, a series of best practices
have been developed to improve the productionof agarwood. Trees take about eight years to reach9Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

10 cm diameter at breast height (dbh), therecommended size for inoculation, followedby two years or more for the agarwood to develop.

• Increase the capacity and knowledge ofenforcement staff and customs officers to more
effectively reduce illegal harvesting and exporting.

Despite the development of plantations, theharvesting of wild agarwood is still permitted, though
under some restrictions in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Illegal harvesting also continues. Numerous instances
are found each year, and some illegally harvested
wood is mixed with plantation wood of the same
quality to circumvent harvest laws. While national
policies continue to be primarily directed towards
the export industry, there are now some conservation
measures in place in all countries, including wild tree
restoration programmes, laws and quotas restricting
or banning wild stock harvest, and registration systems
for the buying, transport, and export of agarwood,
including that from plantations.

• Establish a national registration system forplantation and wild agarwood.

A major impediment to the sustainable managementof agarwood is the lack of information about the statusof wild populations. There are few survey data tounderpin the NDFs on which sustainable annual
allowable harvests can be based. Just four countries
have produced an NDF, with those from Malaysia
and Indonesia now well out of date. While the NDFs
from India (2021) and Thailand (2016) were notavailable for this study, information presented at
a CITES agarwood workshop in 20221 indicatedthat both are robust. Quotas have been set by somecountries for the harvest and export of wild agarwood,
but in the absence of population data, such quotas
have no scientific basis.
Recommendations from the review are listed below.
For range states:• Develop and implement periodic sampling toestablish population data for all agarwood species(in plantations and the wild), and develop proper
NDFs with quotas for all individual agarwood
species.
• Ensure protection of wild trees through improved
regulation and enforcement, and also possibly
through the expansion of protected areas.
• Establish and strengthen national/regional
databases for the identification of the origin of
agarwood specimens. The database could containsite-specific profiles (including DNA profiles) of
agarwood-producing species from range states.

1 https://www.itto.int/direct/topics/topics_pdf_download/topics_
id=7115&no=1&file_ext=.pdf?v=.

10• Develop a licensing system for traders (such as
India’s “legal procurement certificate”), with any
illegal activities by a trader resulting in the lossof the trading licence.
• Develop and implement online technologies tosupport the registration and monitoring process
for plantations, nurseries, and for exporters.
• Control the acquisition of parent stock fromprivate or state lands, or purchased internationally.
• Verify all plantations through inspection.
• Apply transportation permits.
• Samples of the labels used and lists of exporters
should be communicated to the CITES Secretariat
by exporting states, and then provided to all
Parties through a Notification.
• Develop and implement conservation actionplans for the agarwood species, including acomponent for assisted natural regeneration.
• Consider creating a national agarwood species
fund that would collect fees paid by users ofagarwood-producing populations. The funds
should be used to strengthen the implementationof national strategies to ensure the conservationand sustainable management of agarwood species.
• Out-planting programmes for agarwood species
should consider genetic diversity within species
and should not move seeds, seedlings, or cuttingsoutside the distribution range.
• Range states might wish to consider negotiating
and agreeing to implement a common grading
system for agarwood products based on thearomatic compounds present, colour, or otherscientifically measurable characteristics.
• Range states should consider applying to funding
agencies such as the Asian Forest Cooperation
Organization, ITTO, the United Nations
Development Programme, and others for support
to develop their agarwood management plans.
• Technologies to distinguish wild from planted
agarwood exist; plans could be developed/
negotiated to establish regional service laboratories
to carry out such analyses.

TS51

For importing countries:• Given the lack of funding for the conservation of
agarwood species, the major importing countries
might reflect on the damage already done to wild
populations and consider assisting range states torestore and recover wild populations, either directlyor through international agencies working towards
the conservation and sustainable managementof forests.
• Importing countries need to adopt technologies todistinguish between wild and plantation agarwood
and apply these technologies to samples ofincoming agarwood on a regular basis. Further,
importing countries need to upgrade the skills
and knowledge within their customs agencies
to ensure the legal importation of agarwood.
For CITES:• CITES should consider obtaining funding towork with a botanical garden (e.g. Royal Botanical
Gardens, Kew) to develop a clear taxonomy forthe two genera Aquilaria and Gyrinops, thenconsider listing the species individually, in partbased on whether they are agarwood species.
• It is clear that most countries have spentconsiderable time on developing plantation
methods, but limited time on understanding theimportance of an NDF; as a result, CITES should
consider working further with range states toprovide improved information and training
on developing an NDF.
• Parties to CITES should consider whether
additional agarwood-producing species (such as
Aetoxylon sympetalum, an important source ofagarwood in Sarawak) should be included inAppendix II to make international trade
regulations more comprehensive.

• Parties to CITES should consider whether
existing regulations and export quotas adequately
safeguard rare and endemic agarwood species
such as Aquilaria rostrata.
• The current CITES “glossary of agarwood
products” requires further work to reduce its
scope and ensure that there is clarity of the terms.
• All products should be reported in kilograms,
except live specimens reported in numbers.
• “Wood block” and “piece” should be a single
category.
• The Plants Committee should discuss further
with all range states whether the exemption of
exhausted agarwood powder from CITES controls
should be maintained.
• Inconsistencies in the agarwood import/export
database should be addressed by working withcountries to develop consistent terms for products(in line with the glossary) and to specify that
products must be reported in certain units ofmeasurement. Further consideration might begiven to developing an online portal for direct
information input that will only accept certain
terms and units.
• Consider providing guidance on: a) the
appropriateness of establishing quotas based onweight or volume; b) the extent to which suchquotas relate to the number of mature standing
trees, using a precautionary approach; andc) focusing on the harvesting regime rather
than using standard conversion factors.

11Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

1 Introduction
Agarwood is a non-timber forest product valued for
its aromatic, medicinal, and cultural uses. Agarwood
is also known variously as eaglewood, aloeswood,
gaharu (Malay), chen xiang (Chinese), jin-koh(Japanese), oudh or oud (Arabic), mai kritsana (Thai),and tram huong (Vietnamese), among many othervernacular and trade names (Barden et al. 2000).
Primarily sourced from two tree genera, Aquilaria
and Gyrinops, the aromatic and medicinal propertiesof agarwood derive from resinous deposits in the tree’s
heartwood. The genera Gonystylus and Aetoxylon also
produce some agarwood, but not at a commercial
scale. Agarwood is a highly valuable commodity(see Chapter 4) that has often been described as
the most expensive wood in the world.

Sources of agarwood
Agarwood plants are classified in the family
Thymelaeaceae. The taxonomy of this diverse family
is not settled, with the consequence that there are
between 19 and 31 species in the genus Aquilaria,
depending on the taxonomist compiling the list.
Among them are at least 13 species that produce
agarwood (Kaura and Kaushik 2017). Agarwood
is also produced by the genus Gyrinops, of which
there are at least 8 species (some taxonomists place
additional species here rather than in Aquilaria.
Table 1 lists 28 of the species from the two genera.
Figure 1: Inflorescence of A. malaccensis, Penang,
Malaysia. Photo: Lau Kah Hoo

12Distribution and status
Among the Aquilaria species, IUCN lists fouras critically endangered, one as endangered, eightas vulnerable, and the rest as “data deficient”.
A. malaccensis (Figure 1) has been the most importantof the agarwood species (Hou 2006), occurring inIndia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines,
Singapore, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Thailand(Oldfield et al. 1998; Chua 2008), where it is now
listed as critically endangered by the IUCN. Range
states for the other Aquilaria spp. also include Brunei
Darussalam, Cambodia, China, the Lao People's
Democratic Republic, Papua New Guinea, andViet Nam (Table 1). More recently, A. crassna has
become a second species common in trade because it
is increasingly grown in plantations, and now supplies
almost as much agarwood globally as A. malaccensis.
Other exported agarwood comes from A. acuminata(or A. filaria), A. beccariana, A. microcarpa, A. sinensis,
and A. subintegra. The ranges of these species are
not entirely contiguous, and most are restricted in
distribution to just a few countries (Table 1).
Regarding Gyrinops, most agarwood is derived
from G. versteegii, G. caudata, G. ledermanii, andG. walla. Among the Gyrinops species, four are
endangered or critically endangered, while all others
are listed as vulnerable by IUCN. Gyrinops spp. are
distributed in much of Southeast Asia, including
Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, and Papua New
Guinea (Table 1).
Lee and Mohamed (2016) and Turjaman (2022)
have argued the need for better taxonomy for the
Aquilaria spp. to ensure preservation of the full
genetic diversity of the genus. For example, a new
species, A. rugosa was described by Kiet and Kessler
in 2005 (Gratzfeld and Tan 2008). All range states(except Singapore, which does not harvest its native
species) have in common declining wild tree
populations due to chronic overharvesting andincreasing forest habitat conversion to other land
uses (TRAFFIC 2004; UNODC 2017).

TS51

Table 1: Aquilaria and Gyrinops spp. IUCN Red List status, and range states (Wang et al. 2021; Turjaman 2022;
and POWO 2019).
Species

IUCN status* Range states

Aquilaria malaccensis Lam.

CR

India, Myanmar, Bhutan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand,
Singapore, Bangladesh, Nepal

Aquilaria microcarpa Baill

EN

Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia (Kalimantan, Sumatra), Malaysia(Peninsular, Borneo)

Aquilaria apiculata Merr

DD

Philippines

Aquilaria baillonii Pierre ex Lecomte

DD

Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Viet Nam

Aquilaria banaensis P.H.H.

VU

Viet Nam, Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic**

Aquilaria beccariana Tiegh Indonesia

VU

Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia (Kalimantan, Sumatra),
Malaysia (Peninsular, Borneo)

Aquilaria citrinicarpa (Elmer) Hallier f.

DD

Philippines

Aquilaria cumingiana (Decne) Ridl
(Gyrinops cumingiana Decne)

VU

Malaysia (Borneo), Indonesia (Kalimantan, Maluku, Moluccas,
Papua), Philippines

Aquilaria khasiana Hallier f.

CR

India

Aquilaria apiculata Merr

DD

Philippines

Aquilaria parvifolia (Quisumb) Ding Hon(Gyrinops parviflora)DD

Philippines

Aquilaria rostrata Ridl

CR

Malaysia (Peninsula)

Aquilaria rugosa Kiet Kessler

VU

Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand

Aquilaria subintegra Ding Hon

DD

Thailand

Aquilaria urdanetensis (Elmer) Hallier f.

DD

Philippines

Aquilaria yunnanensis S.C. Huang

VU

China (Yunnan), Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Viet Nam (2019)

Aquilaria filaria (Oken) Merr also as:(Aquilaria acuminata (Merr.) Quisumb)

VU

Indonesia (East Nusa Tenggara, Moluccas, Papua), Papua New
Guinea, Philippines

Aquilaria sinensis (Lour.) Gilg

VU

China (Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan, Hong Kong
SAR, Yunnan), (Lao People’s Democratic Republic in plantation only)

Aquilaria crassna Pierre ex LecomteCR

Bhutan, Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Thailand, Viet Nam

Aquilaria hirta Ridl.

VU

Malaysia (Peninsula, Borneo), Indonesia (Kalimantan, Sumatra), Thailand

Gyrinops decipiens Ding HouEN

Indonesia (Sulawesi)

Gyrinops versteegii (Gilg)

VU

Indonesia (Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, Moluccas, Papua), Papua New
GuineaGyrinops walla Gaertn.

VU

Sri Lanka

Gyrinops caudata (Gilg)

VU

Papua, Papua New Guinea

Gyrinops ledermannii Domke

EN

Papua, Papua New Guinea

Gyrinops moluccana (Miq.)

EN

Indonesia (Moluccas, Papua), Papua New Guinea

Gyrinops salicifolia Ridl.

EN

Papua, Papua New Guinea

Gyrinops vidalii P.H. HôCR

Thailand, Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic* CR = critically endangered; EN = endangered; VU = vulnerable; DD = Data deficient.
** Uncertain as not reported by Lao People’s Democratic Republic, but reported by IUCN.

13

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Agarwood production and trade
The fragrant resin comprising agar develops in
the tree heartwood after wounding followed bypathological and non-pathological mechanisms(Ng et al. 1997) as a defense reaction of the plant,
and is deposited around the wounds over the years
following the injury. The accumulation of the various
volatile compounds eventually forms agarwood(Subasinghe and Hettiarachchi 2013). Owing to
the high value of agarwood and declining wild
populations, there has been an increase in the costof the wood over time as well as increasing efforts
to produce agarwood from planted Aquilaria trees.
In the commercially cultivated trees, the productionof resin is induced by physical penetration of thetrunk (wounding) and insertion of a microbial fungal.
Aquilaria species require up to a decade to reachmaturity and most current harvesting techniques,for both wild and cultivated trees, involve destroying
the entire tree.

14

Agarwood is traded as various products andderivatives, including oil, wood, wood chips, flakes,
powder, exhausted powder, carvings, and jewelry(see Chapter 4). High quality wood and oil isprimarily used as incense and perfume in Middle
Eastern countries (Compton and Ishihara 2004),
and agarwood products have been reported as acomponent of many traditional Ayurvedic remedies
in the Indian subcontinent and used in Asian
traditional medicines for many ailments including
arthritis, infections, fever, and as an analgesic (Barden
et al. 2000; Kiet 2003; Lim and Anack 2010). It has
also been tested for its anti-carcinogenic properties,
including for pancreatic cancer (Dahham et al. 2015).
It is clear that the wood has high cultural andmedical significance in Asia and the Middle East.
Unfortunately, wild populations of all agarwoodproducing species have declined considerably overthe past 20–30 years (Soehartono and Newton 2001;
Chua et al. 2016).

TS51

2 Chronology of CITES COP Decisions, discussions
on agarwood and NDF development
The severe, long-term overharvesting and subsequentdecline in wild Aquilaria and Gyrinops species resulted
in an Appendix II listing by CITES. In Malaysia,
for example, Chua et al. (2016) reported that morethan 90% of trees with dbh > 30 cm had alreadydisappeared on the Peninsula between 1993 and 2013,
primarily due to harvesting, most of it illegal. The
CITES listing requires that range states and importers
regulate more closely the use of the species, with any
material exported requiring a permit. This affords
some protection to the wild populations that remain,
but also requires international cooperation from buyers.

Appendix II listing
The process leading to the CITES listing beganin November 1994, when India proposed that
A. malaccensis be included in Appendix II on concernthat international demand was threatening the survivalof the species. A. malaccensis was listed in 1995 and,starting in 1998, there were discussions at the Plants
Committee about protecting more agarwood species.
At CITES COP 13 in 2005, Indonesia formally
proposed that all Aquilaria and Gyrinops species belisted in Appendix II. The proposal was approved,
resulting in the listing of another 19-plus Aquilaria
species as well as 8 Gyrinops species.
As a consequence of the listing, all countries exporting
any agarwood product (with some exceptions–see
below) must issue export permits and report theamounts exported to CITES. A country must also
indicate to CITES via a “non-detriment finding”(NDF) that agarwood exports will not be detrimental
to the survival of the species in the wild.
The listing provides an incentive for countries toconserve remaining stocks and to better manage their
populations of agarwood-producing tree species inorder to maintain their export industry. It also places
an onus on importing countries to try to ensure thatany wood that they import has been legally harvested.
Some countries have since argued that the list is too
inclusive because not all species are endangered, andbecause not all Aquilaria species produce agarwood.

CITES COP Decisions
After the listing of all Aquilaria and Gyrinops species
in Appendix II in 2005, each subsequent CITES
COP has made Decisions relevant to agarwood.

These Decisions are summarized below.

COP 14, 2007
14.138 (Rev. CoP15) Parties concerned should
identify and agree on which agarwood products
and quantities should be exempted from CITES
controls. Once agreed, Parties concerned should
agree which range State will prepare and submit a
proposal for amendment of the current annotation
for agarwood-producing species to be considered at
the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties.
14.144 (Rev. CoP15) The Secretariat shall assist in
obtaining funding from Parties, intergovernmental andnon-governmental organizations, exporters, importers
and other stakeholders to support a workshop aimed
at strengthening the capacity of Parties to implement
agarwood-related Decisions before the 16th meetingof the Conference of the Parties.
14.137 Parties involved in trade in agarwood should,
in consultation with the Secretariat, identify funds
and produce identification materials for all formsof traded products under CITES control.
14.138 Parties concerned should identify and agree
on which agarwood products and quantities should
be exempted from CITES controls. Once agreed,
Parties concerned should agree which range State
will prepare and submit a proposal for amendmentof the current annotation for agarwood-producing
species to be considered at the 15th meeting of theConference of the Parties.
14.140 Parties involved in agarwood trade shallprepare a glossary with definitions that illustrate thecontent of the amended annotations, the terms used
and their practical application during enforcement
and border controls. The Secretariat should facilitate
the preparation and production of these materials, andstrategies for incorporating them in training material.
14.144 The Secretariat shall assist in obtaining
funding from Parties, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, exporters, importers
and other stakeholders to support a workshop
aimed at strengthening the capacity of Parties toimplement agarwood-related Decisions before the15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties.

15

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

COP 15, 201015.95 (Rev. CoP16) Subject to external funding, theSecretariat shall, in cooperation with the agarwood
range States and the Plants Committee, organize aworkshop to share experiences, discuss managementof wild and plantation source agarwood, identify
and agree on strategies that balance the conservation
and use of the wild populations, while relieving thepressure on these by using the planted material.
15.23 Parties are encouraged:a) to consider the outputs of the International Expert
Workshop on Non-Detriment Findings (Cancun,
November 2008) to enhance CITES Scientific
Authorities’ capacities, particularly those related tothe methodologies, tools, information, expertiseand other resources needed to formulate nondetriment findings;b) taking into account Resolution Conf. 10.3, toprioritize activities such as workshops on capacity
building to better understand what non-detrimentfindings are and how to enhance the ways toformulate them; andc) to report their findings regarding paragraphsa) and b) above at the 25th and 26th meetingsof the Animals Committee and 19th and 20th
meetings of the Plants Committee.
15.26 Parties are invited to conduct workshops withthe participation of appropriate experts on the useof timber species and Prunus africana, medicinal
plants and agarwood-producing species nondetriment finding guidance in range States concernedwith the cooperation of the importing Parties.
15.27 The Secretariat shall:a) include practical elements for making nondetriment findings for these plant groups in its
capacity building workshops, in order to generate
feedback from Scientific Authorities to refine theguidelines on making non-detriment findings
included in document CoP15 Doc. 16.3;b) use the external funds offered from interested
Parties, intergovernmental and non-governmentalorganizations, and other funding sources to translate
the guidelines into Arabic, Chinese and Russian
and to support capacity-building workshops
regionally on the use of timber species and Prunus
africana, medicinal plants and agarwood-producing
species non-detriment finding guidance in therange States concerned; andc) maintain the information up to date andaccessible to Parties.

16

15.94 The Plants Committee shall consider current
definitions of artificially propagated plants and how
they apply to trees in mixed species plantations andreport at the 16th meeting of the Conference of theParties.
15.95 Subject to external funding, the Secretariat
shall, in cooperation with the agarwood range States
and the Plants Committee, organize a workshop to
discuss management of wild and plantation-source
agarwood.

COP 16, 201316.155 To facilitate the implementation of theannotation to agarwood producing taxa, based on
document CoP16 Inf. 3 and further information
available, exporting and importing countries ofagarwood producing taxa should produce anidentification manual for agarwood products andcommunicate it to the Secretariat.
16.156 The Plants Committee shall consider thecurrent production systems of tree species including
mixed and monospecific plantations and assess theapplicability of the current definitions of artificial
propagation in Resolution Conf. 10.13 (Rev. CoP15)
and Resolution Conf. 11.11 (Rev. CoP15) respectively,
and report back at the 17th meeting of theConference of the Parties.
16.157 The Plants Committee shall monitor
the implementation of Resolution Conf. 16.10
Implementation of the Convention for agarwood
producing taxa to assess any potential conservation
impacts to the long-term survival of agarwood
producing species and possible problems arising fromthe implementation, and shall report on these issues
at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties.
16.158 The Secretariat shall, upon receipt of theidentification manual mentioned in Decision 16.155
make it available to Parties via the CITES website.

COP 17, 201616.156 (Rev. CoP17) The Plants Committee shallconsider the current production systems of tree species,
including mixed and monospecific plantations, andassess the applicability of the current definitions ofartificial propagation in Resolution Conf. 10.13(Rev. CoP15) and Resolution Conf. 11.11 (Rev.
CoP15) respectively, and report back at the 18th
meeting of the Conference of the Parties.

TS51

16.157 (Rev. CoP17) The Plants Committee shallmonitor the implementation of Resolution Conf.
16.10 (Implementation of the Convention foragarwood-producing taxa) to assess any potential
conservation impacts to the long-term survival ofagarwood-producing species and possible problems
arising from the implementation, and shall reporton these issues at the 18th meeting of theConference of the Parties.
17.194 Range, transit, consumer, and producer
Parties of agarwood products are invited to compile
and publish identification manuals on agarwood
products, taking into consideration the updated
version of the Glossary provided in the Annex to
document PC22 Doc. 17.5.3, and any further updated
version, if appropriate. They are encouraged to
distribute these identification manuals as training
material to management and enforcement officials.
17.195 Subject to available funding, the range Statesshall generate and compile biological and ecological
data as well as information on the harvest, tradeand management of agarwood-producing species
in the wild. Range states are requested to report
this information at the regional agarwood workshop
referred to in Dec. 17.197, and agree on regional
priorities to ensure the survival of populations ofagarwood-producing species in the wild.
17.196 The range States are invited to develop
policies to encourage the sustainable use of and tradein parts and derivatives of artificially propagatedagarwood-producing trees.
17.197 Subject to external funding, the Secretariat,
in cooperation with agarwood range States and thePlants Committee, shall organize a regional workshop
to: continue the work of the Asian Regional Workshop
on the Management of Wild and Planted Agarwood
Taxa, hosted by the Government of India in
Guwahati, Assam, India, from 19 to 23 January 2015
with an emphasis on how range States can cooperate
to ensure the long-term survival of agarwoodproducing species in the wild through agarwood
plantation programmes that integrate forest recovery
programmes; and strengthen the agarwood network
for sharing information on planting stocks,
management, technologies, harvest and trade.

17.198 The Secretariat will report to the Plants
Committee meeting on the implementation ofDecisions 17.195 and 17.197 prior to the 18th
meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES.
17.199 The Plants Committee will consider thereport of the Secretariat submitted in accordancewith Decision 17.198 and report accordingly to the18th meeting of the Conference of the Parties.
17.200 Consumer and trading countries ofagarwood are encouraged to contribute financiallytowards the in situ conservation of wild populationsof agarwood-producing species in range States andfoster cooperation between in situ conservation
programmes and the fragrance industry for thepromotion of the conservation and sustainable useof agarwood-producing species.

COP 18, 201918.203 The Plants Committee shall:a) monitor the implementation of Resolution Conf.
16.10 on Implementation of the Convention foragarwood-producing taxa to assess any potential
conservation impacts to the long-term survivalof agarwood-producing species and possible
problems arising from the implementation, by: eveloping a questionnaire on potentiali) dconservation issues in the implementation of
Resolution Conf. 16.10 on Implementation of
the Convention for agarwood-producing taxa to
be circulated to the Parties through a Notification,
and analysing the responses received;ii) examining available trade data; andiii) analysing available data on the conservation
status of agarwood-producing species; andb) report findings and recommendations to the19th meeting of the Conference of the Parties andadvise on the need for a study to further assess impactsof harvest, management and trade in agarwood
products on the conservation of agarwood-producing
species in the wild.
18.204 The Secretariat shall assist the Plants
Committee in the implementation of Decision
18.203.

17

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

CITES COP Resolutions

CITES Plants Committee discussions

In addition to the Decisions listed above, there is also
one CITES COP resolution pertaining to agarwood
species: Resolution Conf. 16.10.2 The resolution
deals with several issues, including that agarwood
from plantations could not, under the existing rules,
be considered as produced “under controlled
conditions” and “artificially propagated”. Following
from this resolution, however, it was later agreed thatplantation agarwood does meet the requirements to beconsidered as artificially propagated. The resolution
also requested that Parties establish registration
systems for plantations and exporters, and asks that
Parties use the CITES agarwood glossary adopted
by the Plants Committee at its 20th meeting as ameans to standardize terminology.

In 2015, the twenty-second meeting of the CITES
Plants Committee (PC 22) noted that existingguidance did not address the definitions for“artificially propagated” agarwood (Resolution
Conf. 16.10), grafts (Resolution Conf. 11.11 [Rev.
CoP15]) or trees grown in monospecific plantations(Resolution Conf. 10.13 [Rev. CoP15]). It also
noted the need to monitor progress on theimplementation of Resolution 16.10.

A report prepared for CITES on the implementationof Resolution Conf. 16.10 summarized work pertaining
to agarwood for the twenty-second meeting of the
Plants Committee (PC 22) in 2015.3 The report notedthat the Asian regional workshop on the managementof agarwood was held in 2015 in Assam, India andthat the meeting report was publicly available.4
A glossary of agarwood products was prepared
as requested by the CITES COP Management
Authorities of Kuwait and China and made available
on the CITES website.5 The glossary, however, has
not been considered suitable by all Parties andrequires further work.
COP 18 Doc. 65 also provided an update with respect
to Resolution Conf. 16.10.6 It provided the same
report that went to the Plants Committee, but also
included a report from a subsequent agarwood
meeting in 2018, in Indonesia: the “Second Regional
Workshop on the Management of Wild and Planted
Agarwood Taxa”. The workshop resulted in a large
number of recommendations for the managementof wild and plantation agarwood trees.7

2 https://cites.org/eng/res/16/16-10.php
3 h ttps://cites.org/sites/default/files/document/E-Res-16-10_0.pdf
4 h ttp://www.itto.int/files/user/cites/outputs/Report%20of%20
Asian%20Regional%20Workshop%20on%20Agarwood20Feb.pdf.
5 h ttps://cites.org/sites/default/files/notif/E-Notif-2016-041_0.pdf
6 h ttps://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/cop/18/doc/E-CoP18-065.pdf
7 https://cites-tsp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CITES-Tree-SpeciesProgramme-Regional-Meeting-for-Asia-and-Second-Regional-Workshopon-the-Management-of-Wild-and-Planted-Agarwood-Taxa-25-to-29-June2018-Yogyakarta-%E2%80%93-Indonesia-%E2%80%93-Minute.pdf

18

Following from the CITES agarwood meeting in
Assam, India, PC 22 recommended that Parties:• compile biological and ecological data andinformation on illegal harvest;• develop policies for sustainable use of artificially
propagated agarwood;• organize a regional workshop to assess ways
to ensure survival of agarwood species; and• contribute to improving the agarwood glossary.
PC 23, held in 2017, asked that the glossary
be made available via the CITES website.
A year later, PC 24 asked CITES to send aquestionnaire on agarwood trade to Parties and toanalyze the gathered data. The questionnaire was sent
to relevant Parties in 2020. However, the Secretariat
only received eight responses, as reported to PC 25,
which highlighted the following points:• There is no certainty in any country about thestatus of wild populations of agarwood species trees.
• There is no agreement on the issue of whether“assisted production” could complement theconcepts relating to “artificial propagation” asdefined in Resolution Conf. 16.10. Resolving
this issue needs further discussion.
• Countries do not have a method to distinguishbetween wild and planted agarwood raw products
and this remains a problem in trade.
• Not all countries have established a registration
system for exports.
• There is no agreement that the current glossaryof products is sufficient, owing to varying
interpretations of some words and uncertainty
regarding its value for enforcement.
• Distinguishing exhausted from non-exhausted
powder is a problem at import borders.
• NDF guidance could be updated.
• Wild-collected agarwood plant material(e.g. saplings) can be exported as “artificially
propagated” specimens (source code “A”) under
the provisions of Resolution Conf. 16.10. In order
to effectively regulate such specimens in trade,and to ensure that wild agarwood plant material

TS51

is obtained in a manner that is non-detrimental
to species in the wild, it may be more appropriate
to treat and trade such specimens as derived
from “assisted production” (source code “Y”) as
defined in Resolution Conf. 11.11 (Rev. CoP18).
PC 24 also noted the problems with implementing
Resolution 16.10 and requested the Secretariat, basedon the responses to a questionnaire, to perform an
analysis of available trade data, and on available data
regarding conservation status, and to commission astudy if required to assess any potential conservation
impacts.
PC 25, held online in 2021, recommended to consider
further potential revisions to Resolution Conf. 16.10
on the implementation of the Convention foragarwood-producing taxa, taking into account otherrelevant Resolutions, including Resolution Conf.
10.13 on Implementation of the Convention for tree
species, as appropriate; and to formulate appropriate
recommendations regarding the agarwood glossary
and the agarwood NDF guidance.
Recent discussions at the Plants Committee about
agarwood have related mostly to regulatory issues,
such as the status of planted and wild species andaspects of the various products, including using asource code ‘Y’ instead of the special provisions for
trade for artificially propagated agarwood. PC 25
noted the need for identification of materials fromwild versus planted stock, and the need for capacity
building and guidance on legal acquisition findings,
including on the chain of custody, with regard tospecimens of agarwood-producing taxa.
Most recently, the working group on annotations
reviewed Annotation 14 (which specifies products
covered by the agarwood listing) in March 2022.

Current CITES Annotation 14:
All parts and derivatives [derived from Aquilaria
and Gyrinops] are listed under CITES] except:a) seeds and pollen;b)	seedling or tissue cultures obtained in vitro,in solid or liquid media, transported insterile containers;c) fruits;d) leaves;e)	exhausted agarwood powder, including
compressed powder in all shapes; andf) finished products packaged and ready forretail trade, this exemption does not apply
to beads, prayer beads and carvings.

The working group had previously considered that,for conservation reasons, the term “exhausted
powder” should be retained to differentiate it from
non-exhausted agarwood powder.8 More recently,
the working group stated that “further review of theappropriateness and practical challenges resulting
from the implementation of Annotation 14 should
be included in any new Decisions directed to theStanding Committee for further work during theintersessional period between COP 19 and COP 20.”9
There was continuing concern that “exhausted
agarwood powder may be difficult to enforce intrying to distinguish it from original [unexhausted]
powder”. However, the Plants Committee’s
Aquilaria working group and experts at the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew have suggested that gas
chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis is aneffective tool for identifying and quantifying materials
present in a wood sample, and that this technology
could be used to determine the percentage of oil
within agarwood powder, possibly providing afoundation for differentiating between exhausted
and non-exhausted powders. There are also somegrammatical issues regarding the translation of
Paragraph (f ) of Annotation 14 into Spanish andFrench, relating to different punctuation that need
to be resolved for universal clarity.

Non-detriment findings
Under CITES, NDFs must be developed andapproved prior to the export of any Appendix II
plant species. The term “export” for the purposes of
CITES only applies to the trade of specimens fromtheir country of origin. “Re-export” applies to thetrade of specimens originating from a country otherthan the exporting country. In such instances,
specimens only require a “re-export certificate”.
“Country of origin” is defined as the country inwhich a specimen was taken from the wild or
artificially propagated.
CITES has provided range states with guidancefor developing an NDF. But while there is good
information on the methods, there is no one standard
procedure. To establish an export quota, an NDF
must show that the export of materials of a listed
species will not harm the native population of thatspecies. For trees, an NDF is basically a study of
population, growth, and sustainable harvesting thatprovides information on what a safe annual allowable
cut might be while sustaining the wild population
8 https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/sc/66/E-SC66-25.pdf
9 https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/sc/74/E-SC74-81.pdf

19

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

within a country. An NDF should include a scientificreview of available information on the population
status, distribution, population trend, harvest andother biological and ecological factors, as appropriate,
and trade information relating to the species
concerned. The case of agarwood is different fromother CITES-listed tree species that are harvested
for their timber, because the agarwood product isfound in a low percentage of wild trees (estimates
range from 1% to 10% (La Frankie 1994, Oldfield
1998, Chhipa and Kaushik 2017)), making thedevelopment of an NDF methodology morechallenging. Further, while agarwood can be removed
from trees without harvesting, this is rarely done.
A workshop on developing NDFs for any species
listed under CITES was held in Mexico in 2008,
and produced a support document.10 CITES has
also produced several other guidance documents ondeveloping NDFs, including for agarwood species.11
As recently as COP 18, however, Parties asked forfurther assistance on developing an NDF (with a
specific focus on agarwood), including a gap analysis,
a further workshop and additional research.12 This
indicates that there remains some uncertainty among
Parties about how an NDF should be prepared foragarwood species and the data required.
The CITES Scientific Authority for a given country
is responsible for developing NDFs for that country.
CITES also requires Scientific Authorities to monitor
the export of specimens of Appendix II species. To
carry out monitoring, it is important that Scientific
Authorities work closely with the CITES Management
Authority for the country as well as customs andother relevant law enforcement agencies on species
identification and control of the chain of custody.
An effective monitoring system is essential to ensurethat exports stay within limits laid out in an NDF
and do not become detrimental to the survival of
the species in the wild.

10 http://www.conabio.gob.mx/institucion/cooperacion_internacional/
TallerNDF/taller_ndf.html
11 https://cites.org/eng/node/129711, https://cites.unia.es/cites/file.
php/1/files/03.pdf, https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/
ac-pc/ac31-pc25/E-AC31-14-01-PC25-17.pdf, https://cites.org/
sites/default/files/common/com/pc/17/X-PC17-Inf-04.pdf,
https://cites.org/sites/default/files/common/cop/16/
inf/E-CoP16i-11.pdf
12 Decision 18/132-134

20

Despite the available guidance, it appears that mostcountries lack the capacity, funding, political will,
and/or sufficient data to develop an NDF. CITES
and ITTO have tried to rectify this problem, in part,through the various iterations of their cooperative”endangered tree species programme” (currently
housed at CITES as the “CITES Tree Species
Programme”—see Box 1). The programme has
provided funding to some countries, notablyIndonesia and Malaysia, to develop the information
required to produce an NDF. Among exporting
countries, the following have established NDFs foragarwood: Indonesia (2009), Malaysia (preliminary in
2008, updated 2011, 2013), Thailand (for A. crassna,
2016), and India (2021). The Indian and Thai NDFs
were not available for review in this report, the latterbecause it has not been translated. The Lao People's
Democratic Republic is currently in the processof developing an NDF based on new census data.
Information made available at the 2022 CITES
agarwood workshop indicated that the NDF for
India contains data on which the country’s export
quota is based.
The NDF from Indonesia dated 2009 provided
estimated populations of A. malaccensis and A. filaria
based on data from 2001 to 2003, broken down by
province or sub-province. For example, the densityof trees was estimated at 10/ha in West Kalimantan(an area with 8.3 million ha of forest) which would
translate to a population of 83 million Aquilaria trees.
However, most published reports of tree populations(including for Indonesia) suggest that a more normal
tree (dbh > 10 cm) density is less than 1–2 trees/ha(e.g. Oldfield et al. 1998; Soehartono and Newton
2000; Chua 2008; Blanchette et al. 2015). For
example, Soehartono and Newton (2000), indicateda tree density of just 1.17 + 1.09/ha for Aquilaria
spp. in upland Kalimantan forests. These data suggest
possibly a rather large overestimate of the populationin the 2009 Indonesia NDF, if the 10 tree/ha reported
estimate is for trees of dbh > 10 cm (which is notclear in the document annex). Unfortunately, theNDF for Indonesia has not been updated, despite avery large export quota of more than 500 000 kg foreach of the 13 years since the NDF was produced.
There have been, however, several recent publications
from Indonesia that provide local population data,
as reported from the 2022 CITES agarwood workshop.
None of these reports, however, sampled large areas
and few trees were reported.

TS51

The NDF for Malaysia (Chua 2008) is also out ofdate as a contemporary management tool. However,Malaysia has been conducting population censuses
for Aquilaria, with the last one completed in 2013.
These censuses form the basis for an NDF and while
an updated document is lacking, the harvesting andexport quotas are based on some data. In fact, theMalaysia export quota has declined from a high of

200 000 kg in 2015 to just 50 000 in 2022. In
addition, Malaysia has information on its plantation
resources and has seen a large increase in plantations
after 2002 (See Chapter 5). The Malaysian NDF sets
out the rules by which agarwood can be harvested,
the fees required, the process for the registration of
products, and how much wood can be harvested.

21

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

3 A review of CITES trade data
The CITES database

Leading exporters

Regrettably, most governments do not provide
statistics on the production or harvest of agarwood.
Consequently, the CITES export database is the only
source of information about global trade patterns.
The CITES database contains reports of agarwood
species exports that record the genus and (sometimes)
species by country, year, type of product, and (usually)
amount of product. The products recorded include:
derivatives, chips, extract, live specimens, logs, oil,powder, sawn wood, specimens, wax, carvings, timber,
jewelry, timber pieces, stems, medicines, leaves, veneer,seeds, dried plants, boxes, bottles, and wood products.
The amounts are reported in m3, g, or kg for mostwood products; kg, ml, or litres for oil and extract;and number of specimens, g, or kg for plants and stems.

Most Aquilaria is exported from Indonesia, Malaysia,
and Thailand (Figure 2), with Singapore a significant
re-exporter. Recent export patterns have been similar
for Malaysia and Indonesia, with the amount produced
by Indonesia rising significantly after 2008, and thenfalling again after 2013 (Figure 3). The exceptionallyhigh figure for Malaysia in 2017 may be due toa reporting error (such as the use of m3 instead of
kg to measure a shipment). The data for Thailand
indicate little agarwood was exported prior to 2011,
followed by a large increase to a more or lessconsistent level after 2013. The rise in exports fromThailand corresponds to the increasing maturity of
its relatively young plantations. Cambodia, on theother hand, exported a total of more than 315 000
kg of wild agarwood between 1993¬ and 1998, andthen nothing for a decade until small amounts wererecorded again starting in 2008. An exception was
2016, when 200 000 kg was exported (Sinly et al.
2022). The same study suggests that some agarwood
has been exported from Cambodia without permits.

However, a large number of CITES records do notinclude units for the exported good. All countries havesome “no-unit” entries, but most are from Malaysia
and, of these, most are recorded as wild stock,indicating that the amounts recorded for wild stockexported are probably underestimates. In addition,
between 2000 and 2020, more than 236 000 kg
were recorded as exported product but with no
known exporting country (recorded as XX or XY
in the database). In some cases, only the number of“pieces” exported is recorded. There is thus a clear
need for standardized methods for reporting producttypes and amounts in order to make the data moreaccurate and easier to interpret.
Despite these shortcomings, the vast majority (morethan 95%) of exports in the database were recordedwith amounts in m3, kg, or g, making it possible
to summarize that information, understand whichcountries are significant exporters and importers ofagarwood, and identify trends over time (Figures 2to 9). Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia are the threemajor exporting countries of original product, while
several countries or regions import raw agarwood
and refine it into more finished products and thenre-export the material or keep it for local markets.
The latter group includes the United Arab Emirates,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Taiwan POC, and Singapore(which has Aquilaria trees but does not harvest them).
The main exported products from Indonesia andMalaysia are chips, powder, sawn wood, and logs.
The main re-exported products include oil, chips,
powder, and wood. Oil is by far the most expensive
product and most oil is produced by (largest
exporters first) the United Arab Emirates, Thailand,
Malaysia, and India.

22

The trade in Gyrinops agarwood is considerably
smaller than that in Aquilaria agarwood (492 778
kg of Gyrinops vs. 19 681 624 kg of Aquilaria fromall source countries between 2000 and 2020). The
main Gyrinops agarwood exporters are Indonesia,
Papua (recorded separately), Malaysia (re-export13),and Sri Lanka (Figure 4). All countries export
Gyrinops agarwood primarily as chips. The major
producers of agarwood oil from Gyrinops species are
Singapore and Sri Lanka.

Leading importers
There are many importing countries for agarwood,
including in Africa, Asia, North America, and Europe.
The list has expanded as the cosmetics industry has
become more interested in agarwood scents. The
main importers of Aquilaria include the United ArabEmirates, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Taiwan POC(Figure 5). While the Middle East is the biggest
market for agarwood, France, the United Kingdom
and especially China have all increased imports since2010 (Figures 6 and 7). Gyrinops is primarily imported
into Saudi Arabia and Singapore (Figure 8).

13 No records for Gyrinops exist for Malaysia; these data may be in error
but otherwise must be re-export (K.H. Lau, pers. comm.).

TS51

Figure 2: Major exporters of Aquilaria spp. agarwood, showing total exports (of all forms of product reported
in m3, grams, or kg) between 2000-2020 from countries/provinces exporting at least 50 000 kg.
16 000 000
14 000 000

Exports (kg)12 000 000
10 000 000
8 000 000
6 000 000
4 000 000

0
AE

BD

ID

IN

KH

KW

LA

MY

PG

SA

SG

TH

TW

VN

UNK

Key: AE = United Arab Emirates, BD = Bangladesh, ID = Indonesia, IN = India, KH = Cambodia, KW = Kuwait, LA = Lao
People’s Democratic Republic, MY = Malaysia, PG = Papua, SA = Saudi Arabia, SG = Singapore, TH = Thailand, TW = Taiwan
POC, VN = Viet Nam, UNK = Unknown

Figure 3: Annual Aquilaria spp. agarwood exports (all forms of product reported in m3, grams, or kg) from
Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand between 2000-2020.
2 000 000
1 800 000
Malaysia

1 600 000

Indonesia

ThailandExports (kg)

1 400 000
1 200 000
1 000 000
800 000
600 000
400 000
200 000
0
00 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020
2
2
2 2
2
2
2
2 2
2
2
2 2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2

20

23

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Figure 4: Major exporters of Gyrinops spp. agarwood, showing total exports (all forms of product reported
in m3, grams, or kg) between 2000-2020 from countries/provinces exporting at least 20 000 kg.
350 000
300 000

Exports (kg)

250 000
200 000
150 000
100 000
50 000
0
ID

MY

PG

SG

LK

Key: ID = Indonesia, MY = Malaysia, PG = Papua, SG = Singapore, LK = Sri Lanka

Figure 5: Major importers of Aquilaria spp. agarwood (all forms of product reported in m3, grams or kg), showing
total imports between 2000-2020 for countries importing at least 20 000 kg.
10 000 000
9 000 000
8 000 000
Imports (kg)

7 000 000
6 000 000
5 000 000
4 000 000
3 000 000
2 000 000
1 000 000
UNK

VN

TW
US

SG

TH

SA

QA

OM

MO
MY

LA

KW

JP

KR

ID
IN

HK

FR

UK

EG

DE

AE

BH
CN

0

Key: AE = United Arab Emirates, BH = Bahrain, CN = China, DE = Germany, EG = Egypt, FR = France, UK = United Kingdom,
HK = Hong Kong SAR, China, ID = Indonesia, IN = India, JP = Japan, KR = Republic of Korea, KW = Kuwait, LA = Lao People’s
Democratic Republic, MO = Macau, MY = Malaysia, OM = Oman, QA = Qatar, SA = Saudi Arabia, SG = Singapore, TH = Thailand,
TW = Taiwan POC, US = United States of America, VN = Viet Nam, UNK = Unknown
Note: the value for China is an underestimate because, in several years, large amounts of “logs” or “timber” were imported withno units recorded.

24

TS51

Figure 6: Annual Aquilaria spp. agarwood imports into France and the United Kingdom from 2000-2020,reflecting increased use of agarwood in the cosmetics industry in some developed countries.
2000

Imports (kg)

1500
1000
500

04
20
05
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14
20
15
20
16
20
17
20
18
20
19
20
20

20

20

03

0

FranceUnited Kingdom

Figure 7: Aquilaria spp. imports into mainland China from 2000-2020.
250 000

Imports (kg)

200 000
150 000
100 000
50 000

2020

2019

2018

2017

2015

2016

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

0

Note: numbers are underestimates for several years when large amounts of “logs” or “timber” were imported withno units recorded.

25

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Figure 8: Major importers of Gyrinops spp. agarwood (all forms of product reported in m3, grams, or kg),
showing total imports between 2000-2020 into countries/provinces importing at least 20 000 kg.
350 000
300 000
Imports (kg)

250 000
200 000
150 000
100 000
50 000
0
AE

BH

IN

KW

MY

SA

SG

TW

YE

Key: AE = United Arab Emirates, BH = Bahrain, IN = India, KW = Kuwait, MY = Malaysia, SA = Saudi Arabia, SG = Singapore,
TW = Taiwan POC, YE = Yemen

Figure 9: Total wild and plantation Aquilaria spp. exports by all range states 2000–2020. (all products
reported in m3, g, or kg).
1 800 000
1 600 000
Exports (kg)

1 400 000
1 200 000
1 000 000
800 000
600 000
400 000
200 000
0

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

Planted

26

Wild

TS51

The rise of plantation agarwood
The ratio of wild to plantation-sourced Aquilaria
agarwood in the CITES export data has changed
over time (Figure 9). Up to 2005, only A. malaccensis
was listed in Appendix II and so, until then, allrecorded exports were of that species.
Following the listing of all agarwood species in 2005,
there was a large increase in the reported export ofwild stock, especially over the period from 20082013, followed by a large decline in exports fromall countries combined from 2014 at a rate of about
133 000 kg/yr (linear model, r2 = 0.81). After a
spike in 2018, wild agarwood exports continued
this downward trend. Plantation agarwood exports
increased after 2013 at the rate of about 68 000 kg/
yr (linear model, r2 = 0.70), although there has beena recent slight decline from 2018 to the present. No
plantation agarwood exports were reported prior to
2005. Oddly, there was a sharp decline in plantation
agarwood exported in 2016 that corresponded to
no known major global event, followed by levels
returning to normal in 2017. The amount ofplantation agarwood exported first surpassed wild
product in 2017, then again in 2019 and 2020.
There is also some contradictory information aboutwild and plantation-sourced material. Pasaribu et al.
(2021) state that no plantation agarwood had been
exported from Indonesia up to 2020, but the CITES
database indicates that small amounts of planation
agarwood have been exported since 2013. Nevertheless,less than 2% of Indonesia’s exports were fromplantations during 2019 and 2020. While Malaysia
also reported less than 2% of its exports as comingfrom plantations in 2019, most of the just 8 400 kg
exported in 2020 according to CITES data wasfrom plantations.
The CITES database also enables a comparison file,which shows how much product was imported by acountry with the amount from the exporting country.
While these data should theoretically match, generally
they do not. Finally, comparing total global exports
and imports for Aquilaria shows that there were
6 273 402 kg more recorded as imported than wasreported exported in the 20-year period, indicatingthat roughly 300 000 kg/yr are not being reported asexported. Similarly, for Gyrinops, the data indicatedthat about 20 000 kg/year are not being recorded asexported. Lim and Noorainie (2010) also illustrated
this issue by finding huge differences between
Malaysian customs export data and the data recordedin the CITES database for all years from 1995 to
2002, including some years where the difference wasof more than 1 million kg of agarwood.

Overall, however, the CITES database for agarwood
remains useful for illustrating trends in the main
exporting and importing countries and also trends
over time in amounts and product types.
Unfortunately, the many inconsistencies in reporting
units, different names for products, exports to andimports from unknown countries, and the substantial
differences between imported and exported amounts,
indicate that there is a high level of inaccuracy in thereporting system. These issues need to be addressedby CITES to improve clarity of the information forthese two tree species and to enable better protection
for wild populations. Suggestions for improvement to
the database include: standardized units, standardized
product types, direct reporting by country customs
agencies to CITES, and an annual audit of data
by CITES.

Voluntary quotas
CITES also maintains a database of voluntary
agarwood quotas as reported by the Parties. Quotas
are typically an annual allowable cut set by a country’s
Scientific Authority and recommended to its
Management Authority. As noted, many countries
lack the capacity and the data required to produce
a meaningful quota or an NDF report, introducing
uncertainty into the management of wild stocks.
There are recorded quotas for four exporting countries
for Aquilaria agarwood, including: India (for 2022–
2024, of 25 000 kg, including 1 500 kg of oil);Indonesia (for 2006–2021, of 30 000–178 482 kg;
in 2021 the quotas were 101 000 kg for A. malaccensis,
490 010 kg for A. filaria, and 3 000 kg for G. versteegii);
and Malaysia (for 2012–2022, of 30 000–200 000
kg; in 2022, the quotas are 50 000 kg for Peninsular
Malaysia and 5 000 kg for Sarawak). Quotas for the
Lao People's Democratic Republic have beenrecorded since 2020 and increased for 2022 forA. crassna to 7 600 m3 of logs, 134 000 kg of chips,
1 910 litres of oil, and 42 000 kg of powder. Export
quotas have been exceeded in some years, although
Indonesia exported less than its proposed quota
from 2014 onward, according to its presentation at
the 2018 CITES agarwood workshop. For Gyrinops,
there were only quotas from Indonesia, for the years
2008–2016, ranging from 5 000 kg to 520 740 kg(where the higher figure also included A. filaria).
In some years, the quotas were allocated to specificproducts, while in most years they were general.
Overall, despite concern for wild populations, very
few range states have developed and applied exportor harvest quotas and those that have developed
quotas have done so in the absence of good dataon populations of these species.

27Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

4 Agarwood products and their trade
Forms of agarwood
Agarwood is sold in many forms. The most common
raw export products are chips, powder, sawn wood,and logs. Modified agarwood products include oil,exhausted powder, medicines, perfumes and cosmetics,
incense (joss), carvings, and jewelry.
Several destination markets exist for agarwood,
including the Middle Eastern market for oil, highquality chips, and lesser quality products for bakhoor,
and the Asian market for high quality incense products,
exhausted powder used for making incense joss sticks,
small solid wood products (including prayer beads
and small sculptures), and medicinal products. In
addition, there is a growing market in the European
Union, the United Kingdom, and the United Statesof America for agarwood oil for use in cosmetics
and perfumery (UNCTAD 2017).
Agarwood fragrances are considered a symbol of ahigh standard of living in Middle Eastern and Arabcountries and the market for luxury and premium
goods in that region continues to grow. Indonesia
has produced some novel agarwood products, ofwhich black magic wood (BMW) has become popular.
BMW is produced by impregnating (non-agarwood)
wood chips with a mixture of agarwood resin andlow-grade agarwood oil in a high-pressure boiler.
BMW (known in Arabic as “oud sana’i") now has amarket in the Middle East, especially among middleclass consumers in the United Arab Emirates. BMW
is a cheaper alternative to agarwood and sells forabout USD 400/kg (Turjaman 2022).
The majority of reported exports are of A. malaccensis
and A. crassna (total 66%), but 24% was not attributed
to any species, based on the CITES database (Figure10). Given that CITES is a “species convention”,
the high percentage of unknown species is rather
disappointing, indicating some disregard among
exporters for proper detail in permitting. The othersix Aquilaria species contributed only minor amountsof the agarwood in trade. For Gyrinops, the majority
was attributed to G. versteegii and G. walla, with
26% not recorded by species (Figure 11).

Product grading
No standard biochemical parameters have been
determined to define and grade agarwood, and the
combination of its various constituent compounds canvary between different samples from the same tree.

28

Figure 10: Species breakdown of total exports of
Aquilaria spp. agarwood products from all range
states from 2000-2020.
4%

23%

35%

A. beccariana
A. crassna
A. filaria
A. malaccensis
Other Aquilaria spp.

31%

7%

Figure 11: Species breakdown of total exports of
Gyrinops spp. agarwood products from all range
states from 2000-2020.
1%
7%

35%

23%

G. caudata
G. leidermanii
G. versteegii
G. walla
Other Gyrinops spp.

34%

Nevertheless, the value or grade of agarwood producthas long been subjectively and comparatively gradedby experts, based on colour, odour, specific gravity,
and resin content, and prices can vary greatly forthe same product depending on the grade (Nazizet al. 2019). Agarwood experts apparently can evendifferentiate between the scent profiles of agarwood
oil (also known as oud oil) from wild-sourced stockfrom particular regions. The quality and value ofextracts are dependent both on the skills of the
manufacturer and the quality of the source product.
Agarwood grading in the marketplace often uses alettering system (A to D) combined with descriptive
terms (such as super, supreme, deluxe, +/-) and/or anumerical classification (1–5) to distinguish quality.
There is no commonly accepted standard, even within
individual countries or states, let alone across theTS51

industry. For example, it is possible to find agarwood
graded as Super Deluxe, Super Double, Super, A,or oil graded as AAA, AA, A+, A, and A1 (Oud Oil
Trading 2022) There are different grading systems
in the various exporting countries. For example,
Malaysia uses a 12-grade system, while Indonesia
uses a 9-grade system. China has published its own
guide for grading agarwood (Anonymous, 2017).
Various quantitative methods involving gas
chromatography and mass spectrophotometry
have also been used to distinguish among grades(e.g. Wang et al. 2021). But the industry still lacks
a global grading standard for agarwood based on
quantifiable indicators.

Oil extraction
While raw agarwood of high quality is often burned
as whole chips for its fragrance, lesser quality woodis generally reserved for oil extraction. Oil extraction
techniques are considered proprietary and often
closely guarded by the various manufacturers, primarily
because proper techniques can substantially increase
both quality and yield. One litre of agarwood oil
requires about 144 kg of wild-source chips to
produce, making the oil a very expensive product(Lim et al. 2022). Some extraction techniques andthe use of plantation stock require even more wood.
For example, in Cambodia, producing a litre of oil
requires 1 000 kg of young plantation wood of A.
crassna (Sinly et al. 2022).
Oil extraction usually involves one of three main
methods: hydro-distillation, steam distillation,or supercritical carbon dioxide extraction. All theprocesses use dried chipped wood that is groundinto a pulp and boiled in a still. Hydro-distillationis the oldest and most labour-intensive method of
the three and involves soaking the wood, boiling it
in water and removing the oil from the water surface.
Yields can be as low as 0.1%. Pressurized steam isfaster but risks scorching the wood and may also
produce substances that can reduce the quality of
the final product. The use of carbon dioxide as asolvent is uncommon. While it has the potential
to produce higher yields, the process can also resultin the extraction of derivatives that can impact on
quality. Other techniques are currently being
studied to produce higher yields and improve thequality of the oil, including solid liquid extraction,
microwave-assisted extraction, spinning band
distillation, ultrasonic assisted steam distillation,
supercritical fluid extraction, and ultrasonic assistedhydro-distillation (Lim et al. 2022).

Once the oil has been extracted, the remaining woodstill retains some aromatic qualities, and is generally
reduced to powder (exhausted powder) for use in
incense or bakhoor (scented bricks ). The powder
can also be pressed into small statues, often ofreligious significance. Lower grades of wood may
also be carved into objects like sculptures and beads
that retain their aromatic qualities for years, although
it appears that most of the beads in circulation are ofother woods soaked in agarwood oil (UNODC 2016).

Markets and prices
Agarwood is known as the most expensive wood in
the world. In 2018, worldwide sales of agarwood
chips alone amounted to USD 30–32 billion andare predicted to reach USD 64 billion by 2029
(Persistence Market Research 2019; Ash 2020).
This represents a huge increase from the estimatedmarket value of USD 6–8 billion suggested by Akter
et al. (2013) less than a decade ago. An estimated
75% of current sales of agarwood chips are madein the Middle East and Africa, East Asia, andSoutheast Asia, with top-grade agarwood sellingfor as much as USD 100 000/kg (Ash 2020).
Agarwood oil is also extremely valuable. In 2021,
the price of the oil reached USD 487/tola (1 tola ≈12 ml, giving a price per litre of about USD 40 500),
up from USD 325/tola in 2005 (Oud Oil Trading2022). Market Watch (2022) stated that the global
agarwood essential oil market, used in cosmetics
and therapeutics, was valued at USD 131.8 million
in 2019. Interestingly, small landholders and small
enterprise owners, who are at the very beginning of
the value chain, only earn USD 100–600 per
month (see Chapter 6).
There is growing concern that the supply of wildorigin agarwood is becoming severely reduced. The
result could be even higher prices for wild-origin
product in future, and speculative buying andstockpiling (Ensar Oud 2011; UNODC 2016).

Quality of plantation vs. wild
agarwood
As a result of the decline in wild populations ofagarwood-producing trees, exporting countries
are increasingly turning to plantations as a way tomaintain their export business and income. However,while plantations may have been successful in termsof cultivation, the agarwood they produce is widely
considered to be of lower quality that its wildsourced equivalent (Tamuli et al. 2005; Bhuiyan
et al. 2009; Devi 2021).

29

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Some analyses have found significant differences in
the concentrations of oils and aromatic compounds
between plantation and wild agarwood samples(Tamuli et al. 2005; Espinosa et al. 2014). A possible
explanation may be the rapid turnover of plantation
agarwood. Plantation trees are harvested as soon as
two years after infection, providing limited time foraromatic compounds to accumulate, whereas wildtrees may have grown for decades before they are
harvested (Mustafa et al. 2022; Hoang Giang
Agarwood: www.hgagarwood.com). As a result,some farmers and investors may be hesitant toinvest in agarwood cultivation. However, research
to improve the quality of plantation products is
ongoing, and the quality of plantation agarwood
has somewhat improved over time (see Chapter 5).

Agarwood product glossary
In 2007 at CITES COP 14, Decision 14.10 requested
the Parties to produce an identification manual, or
glossary, for agarwood products. The purpose of themanual was to standardize the names used for thereporting of different product types. A preliminary
document was co-written by authors from Kuwait,Indonesia, China, and Thailand and delivered to
CITES at COP 16, with an updated version provided
to Parties at COP 17. The glossary is available on the
CITES website. However, it has not been endorsedby all Parties. PC 25 considered some proposed
revisions to the glossary but recommended not tomake any amendments at that time. No further
versions have been developed and so the glossary
has still not been fully accepted.
The current version of the glossary14 lists 21 products,from plant parts such as leaves and seeds to medicine
and a pooled category called “Finished products
packaged and ready for retail trade”. However, someParties consider the number of product types excessive(Malaysia, for example, only registers nine products)
and/or are concerned about the value of the glossaryfor enforcement. Specifically, definitions including
those for wood pieces, chips, logs, and blocks havebeen considered unclear, while some Parties havereservations about differentiating between exhausted
and non-exhausted powder. A good example is thedescription of chips as “small to medium pieces ofagarwood” without defining the terms “small” or“medium” in terms of some minimum and maximum
weight. Such issues need to be resolved to create asingle globally applicable glossary and enable the useof consistent categories in the CITES database. The
14 Annex to document PC22 Doc. 17.5.3.

30

ongoing problems would indicate that CITES should
consider convening a new working group meeting
to deal with the glossary issue, with the key Parties
invited. The CITES Tree Species Programme –Validation Workshop on Agarwood convened in
2022 to review this report provided some further
guidance (see recommendations in Chapter 8).

Illegal trade and enforcement
CITES has listed all Aquilaria and Gyrinops species
on Appendix II, meaning that exporting and reexporting countries must have a CITES export permit,
issued by the country CITES Management Authority,
to sell any agarwood parts (except parts as covered
under Annotation 14—see above) to an importing
country. Importing countries are not required toprovide an import certificate. They are, however,supposed to ensure that the paperwork is in orderand matches the products in question, and somecountries have supplied CITES voluntarily withinformation on agarwood imports.
Illegal harvesting represents the main threat to theremaining wild stocks of agarwood-producing species(UNODC 2016). Agarwood products comprised
6% of global seizures by value between 2005 and2014, 4% of seizures between 2009 and 2013,
but dropped to 0.6% between 2014 and 2018
(UNODC 2020). Their reports also noted that it
is likely that only a very small proportion of illegal
product is seized in any given year. Interestingly,
agarwood is mentioned 71 times in the 2016
UNODC report, but only five times in the 2020
report, suggesting that perhaps there has either been
reduced enforcement effort, or that the amountof illegal product has declined. Unfortunately,
the UNODC reports did not indicate amount ortypes of materials seized and so there is no way ofdetermining if a possible decline in illegal agarwood,
as suggested, was an actual decline in product seized,a relative increase in other products seized, reduced
enforcement efforts, or an increase in the value ofsome of the other products reported. The UNODC
data indicated that most seizures occurred from 2007
to 2011, and there was very minimal information
on agarwood seized products in the 2020 UNODC
report. CITES receives illegal seizure reports annuallyfrom most countries, but those data are confidential,
and so it was not possible to corroborate the
UNODC information.
UNODC indicated that illegal agarwood products
are largely laundered through plantation operations,with no way to follow chain of custody, and Lim et al.

TS51

Figure 12: Illegally harvested Aquilaria tree. Photo:
Kadoorie Farm and Botanical Garden, Hong Kong SAR(2022) concurred. Since that report (2016), somecountries, such as Thailand, have required that all
agarwood products be registered and made it illegal
to acquire products of unknown origin, so that chainof custody can be followed. Most of the illegal
agarwood product seized was shipped from Malaysia,
Indonesia, and India destined to Saudi Arabia, theUnited Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Japan(UNODC 2016).
Illegal harvest of agarwood continues to take placethroughout Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.
Researchers in Malaysia found that, between 2011
and 2015, more than 25% of the Aquilaria trees
were lost at two monitored sites, of which 85% wereillegally harvested (Chua et al. 2016). This harvesting
is being carried out by local people as well as foreign
nationals. Data from Peninsular Malaysia showedthat 46 arrests for illegal harvesting of agarwoodproducing species were recorded in 2019, but none
during the following two years, although threearrests occurred in Sabah in 2021 (Lim et al. 2022).
In addition, some Malaysians have been involved inagarwood harvesting in neighbouring countries. In
particular, Lim et al. (2022) reported that Malaysians
have entered Brunei Darussalam from Sarawak toharvest agarwood and then smuggle it back into
Malaysia for export. Since 2010, the government inBrunei Darussalam has hired local Indigenous people
to assist with enforcement by conducting jungle
patrols, especially to curb poachers from Malaysia.

Figure 13: Protective cage to stop poachers fromcutting agarwood trees. Photo: Kadoorie Farm and
Botanical Garden, Hong Kong SAR

Indonesia pools its data for arrests and seizures
related to endangered species and does not publicly
report data specifically for agarwood. The data showsa small but slightly increasing number of arrests(mean arrests were 58 per year) between 2015 and2021 (Turjaman 2022).
A presentation by Myanmar at the 2022 CITES
workshop indicated total legal agarwood exports of
only 516 kg during the past three years, despite thecountry having about 300 ha of plantation. This
would indicate a considerable amount of agarwood
is leaving the country through unknown means. Data
from Cambodia suggest a similar situation there.
Importing nations have a significant role to playin detecting and interdicting illegal agarwood trade,
and in encouraging the sourcing of legal and traceable
agarwood products. This is a complex problem,
however and requires customs officers who aretrained in the identification of agarwood products
and understand the importation requirements.
Examples of illegal harvesting are regularly reported
in the media, including the following recent examples(from published news reports, unless otherwise
referenced):31Expensive, Exploited and Endangered• In Peninsular Malaysia in 2020, police raided
and shut down an illegal agarwood oil operation,
seizing agarwood worth USD 500 000.
• In Sri Lanka, in 2015 and 2016, 89 212 kg ofagarwood chips were confiscated as poachers were
trying to export it illegally to India, South Africa
and the United Arab Emirates. The Sri Lankan
CITES focal point noted, while G. walla islisted under the recent endangered species act,
nevertheless that illegal harvesting and land-clearing
has rendered the population very low by 2022.
• In Hong Kong Special Administrative Region(SAR) China, there were more than 100 casesof illegal cutting reported each year for 2014 and2015, though that rate halved in 2016–18, possiblyas a result of improved enforcement (Anon. 2018).
Also in China, Chen et al. (2019) reported 690
cases of illegal harvesting from 2010 to 2018.
• In the Philippines, there have been several reportsof wild agarwood seizures, varying in size from17 to 73 kg, and totalling at least 145 kg, between
2018 and 2021.
• In Mumbai India, 525 kg of illegal agarwood,
sourced in Assam and destined for the Middle
East, were seized over a 7-month period in 2018.
• At the 2018 CITES agarwood workshop,
Myanmar reported that while it was illegal toexport wild agarwood or agarwood that cannot
be accounted for, much wood was being illegally
exported to India, China, and Thailand. The
presentation stated that CITES implementation
was not a priority for the Myanmar Forestry
Department.
• In Brunei Darussalam, authorities are now
deploying drones to monitor illegal agarwood
harvesting, after losing many trees over the past
few years to illegal foreign loggers.
These examples suggest that the illegal trade in
agarwood is still very much ongoing. Given the current
high price of agarwood, the illegal harvesting and tradein agarwood also seems certain to continue in future.

Timber tracking and tracing:
distinguishing agarwood species
and country of origin
DNA-barcoding is an emerging tool to identify trees
to the species level, and can contribute to monitoring
the timber trade and enforcing conservation laws
(Jiao et al. 2020). DNA barcoding has been usedsuccessfully in several studies to distinguish Aquilaria
species (e.g. Lee et al. 2016; Thitikornpong 2018;32

Pern et al. 2020; Tanaka and Ito 2020; Lee et al. 2022).
For example, Lee et al. (2016) were able to distinguishamong Aquilaria species from wood samples, aswell as among Aquilaria, Gyrinops, and Gonystylus
genera. The same study also found that the method
could identify the country of origin for various
products. Pern et al. (2020) were able to use DNA
barcoding to distinguish between A. beccariana
from Peninsular Malaysia and trees of the same
species from Borneo. While they could similarly
distinguish A. beccariana from other species, the levelof distinction needs to be improved with further
research on other genetic markers. Studies have also
indicated the potential for the method to ensure
quality control in agarwood medicinal products.
DNA barcoding is one of several methods andtechnologies in use or development to identify andtrack timber and wood samples. Others include
examining wood anatomy, barcoding , DART-TOFMS,
stable isotope and DNA assessment, chain-of-custody
paper documentation (sometimes with barcodes),gas chromatography, mass spectrophotometry, andinfrared colouration detection. These methods canbe applied at any point on a product supply chain
to verify origin, but all require the establishment
of databases of benchmarks against which to verify
a sample. Tracking systems need to be a legislated
requirement and incorporated into existing structuresand management systems (Seidel et al. 2012).
Subsequent work by Lee et al. (2022) developed
DNA databases of A. malaccensis as tracking tools
at species, population, and individual levels for use
in forensic investigations and for chain of custodycertification. Two DNA markers and some rRNA
markers enabled distinguishing among A. malaccensis,
A. hirta, A. microcarpa, A. beccariana, A. crassna,
A. sinensis, and A. rostrata. The study included twocase studies illustrating how the DNA databases
enabled the tracking of A. malaccensis samples backto the Malaysian origin population and even thestump of the tree from which the sample originated.
The authors noted, however, that while the databases
are ready for use in enforcement, successful application
will require a policy framework and depend on
collaboration among enforcement agencies,
governments, private enterprise, timber certification
organizations, and community members to enable
sustainable agarwood management. For Malaysia,
the cost of analyzing samples for agarwood tracking
and verification of geographic origin is about
USD 440 per sample, with delivery of results in
14 working days (Lee, pers. comm.).

TS51

Distinguishing agarwood fromother woods
The ”InsideWood” project15 provides a searchable
database into which anatomical characteristics
measured from a wood sample can be entered to
identify species. Aquilaria and Gyrinops are readily
distinguished from trees, including fragrant trees,of other genera, based on only a few characteristics.
However, samples cannot be readily distinguishedto the species level (Gasson 2011).
More than 150 compounds have been found in
agarwood that give it its aromatic and medicinal
properties. The main phytochemical constituents are
mixtures of sesquiterpenes and 2-(2-phenylethyl)
chromones (PECs). Other dominant compounds
include: agarofurans, cadinanes, eudesmanes (andselinanes), valencanes, eremophilanes, guaianes,prezizanes, vetispiranes, alongside smaller components
such as benzene, toluene, and naphthalene (Naef 2011;
Chen et al. 2012; Subasinghe and Hettiarachchi 2015;
Naziz et al. 2019).
Lancaster and Espinosa (2012) tested three species of
Aquilaria (A. crassna, A. sinensis and A. malaccensis)
against 25 other scented wood genera16 using a mass
spectrophotometer (specifically DART-TOFMS) to
determine if the agarwoods could be distinguished.
The test included samples of wood chips, sawdust,
incense, and liquids. The results indicated that
reliable criteria for inferring agarwood were thepresence of certain diagnostic ions (specifically m/z
319.118 or 349.129) in addition to 10 or more ionscharacteristic of PECs. None of the other 25 woods
that were tested had these characteristics. Further
research is needed to confirm these findings using
agarwood from different countries as well as
plantation agarwood (Deep and Tajudin 2019).
DNA barcoding can also be used to identify tree
species (Degen and Sebbenn 2014; Jiao et al. 2014;
Lee et al. 2022). In Malaysia, the identification orauthentication of Aquilaria to species level costs
USD 300 per sample, with delivery of results in
7 working days (S.L. Lee, pers. comm.).

Distinguishing plantation fromwild-origin agarwood
Among the implementation challenges for CITES
controls within countries are the inability todifferentiate wild from artificially propagated15 https://insidewood.lib.ncsu.edu/welcome
16 Including: Abies, Boswellia, Caesalpinia, Caryocar, Cedrela, Dalbergia,
Iranthera, LIcaria, Machaerium, Phoebe, Pterocarpus, Schefflera,
Scleronema, Swartzia, Swietenia, and Santalum.

agarwood, and the lack of knowledge amongsmallholders about how to comply with agarwood
trading regulations. It is of particular interest to
agarwood-producing countries to be able to export
products from plantations that can be sustainably
managed, as opposed to wild trees that areendangered and should not therefore be used forexported products. While some countries haveinstituted registration systems that can identify
products and follow the chain of custody, there is
still a perception that wild wood, usually illegally
harvested, is included in some shipments of woodfrom plantations (UNODC 2016).
Espinosa et al. (2014) were able to distinguishbetween plantation-origin and wild-origin agarwood
products of Aquilaria genus (A. crassna, A. beccariana,
and A. sinensis) using DART-TOFMS analysis ofpaired planted and wild samples of wood chips fromfour countries (Thailand, Viet Nam, Malaysia, andChina). The analyses found concentrations of specificion groups that differed between cultivated and wild
samples, regardless of the country of origin. At thesame time, the ions distinguishing wild fromplantation agarwood mostly differed among countries,
indicating that, in many cases, country of origin could
also be determined. While the method requires specificequipment and a statistical analysis, it was successful
for 85% of the cases tested. The incorrectly classified
samples likely were the result of low resin content in
the tested samples. As previously discussed, there isevidence that agarwood from plantations is inferior
in quality to that from wild plants (e.g. Tamuli et al.
2005; Bhuiyan et al. 2009), so the fact that
distinguishing between the products is possible
based on an analysis of the odour-producing
components should not be surprising.
Zhang et al. (2014) examined the chemicalcomposition of agarwood oil of A. sinensis extracted
from healthy trees, from wild agarwood, and fromplantation agarwood (that was infected with thefungus Lasiodiplodia theobromae). They found thatthe composition of oil from inoculated and wild trees
were similar but that sesquiterpenes found in the wild
agarwood (such as spathulenol, elemol, agarospirol,
corymbolone and cyclo-isolongifolene) were absent
in fungal-inoculated samples. In a similar study
comparing oils from wild and chemically induced
A. sinensis agarwood, Chen et al. (2011) recorded
several notable differences in the composition ofsesquiterpenes and aromatics, including benzylacetone,
γ-eudesmol, eudesm-7(11)-en-4α-ol, α-Copaen-11-ol,
and baimuxinal. Likewise, Yang et al. (2021) wasable to distinguish wild and cultivated agarwood of33

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

A. sinensis based on sesquiterpenes and PECs withgas chromatography-mass spectrophotometry.
These studies provide a strong indication that wild
and plantation origin agarwood could be separated
by their chemical components. The drawback isthat the tests require a laboratory with specialized
equipment and trained technicians.

Wang et al. (2020) used genetic markers to test
agarwood reported as wild stock (illegally harvested
by poachers) against plantation stock of A. sinensis.
They were unable to distinguish between the twosources of wood, suggesting that the illegal wood wasactually stolen from plantations. The implication,
however, is that the use appropriate genetic markers
can distinguish wild from planted A. sinensis.
Similarly, Shen et al. (2019)17 were able to distinguish
A. sinensis from different regions of China using DNA
barcoding methods.

17 Much (but not all) of the research on A. sinensis is published in
non-mainstream journals (e.g., African Journal of Biotech) and is not
subject to rigourous peer review.

34

TS51

5 Review of standing agarwood-producing
tree resources
A questionnaire (see Appendix) on populations andmanagement of agarwood trees was sent to relevant
authorities in the following countries and provinces
to assist with the preparation of this report: India,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar,
Thailand, Cambodia, Viet Nam, China, Singapore,
the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and Papua(the latter through the Indonesian Agarwood
Association). The recipients were either major range
state exporters, or countries fully within the distributionof Aquilaria but where the CITES export data were
unclear. Answers were obtained from: Indonesia,
Malaysia, India, Cambodia, Thailand, the Lao People's
Democratic Republic, China, Viet Nam, and Sri
Lanka. Despite follow-up emails and a request
directly from the CITES Secretariat for information,
Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Papua did not respond.
Singapore responded that it only re-exports agarwood
products, although there is some Aquilaria in its
remaining forests. CITES circulated a similar
questionnaire about agarwood in 2020 and received
responses from only four countries: Bhutan, China,
Cambodia, and Thailand.
In the wild, Aquilaria and Gyrinops trees occur at alow density (up to 2/ha) and very few trees produce
agarwood, with estimates ranging from 1% to 10%of all wild trees (Oldfield et al. 1998; Soehartono andNewton 2000; Blanchette et al. 2015). A census ofillegally felled A. crassna trees in the north of the Lao
People’s Democratic Republic indicated a density of
2.2 trees/ha (Jensen and Meilby 2012), which is highconsidering that felled trees must have been at least
10 cm dbh, meaning that smaller stems were notincluded in the estimate.
For populations, some countries have reported an
estimated number of trees, while others have only
estimated the area of plantations (Table 2). Trees arereported in one or several categories: plantation, wild,home garden, or research plots. In some cases, it isuncertain if the numbers refer only to plantation
stock, or represent a combined estimate of wild trees
plus those in plantations and home gardens. For mostcountries, there remains high uncertainty about
the status of the wild population or the plantation
population (or area planted) with, for some, vastlydifferent estimates based on the various sources ofdata, sometimes as reported just a few years apart(e.g. Bhutan, China, Nepal) (Table 2).

In 2017, the A. sinensis population in China wasreported as: 70 442 trees from 20 to 30 years old
in Guangdong, 59 888 trees from 2 to 30 years
old in Hainan, and 2 trees of more than 40 years
in Guangxi, with 300 scattered trees remaining in
Hong Kong SAR (Li 2014 in Chen et al. 2019, Anon.
2018) as a result of increased protection measures(Figures 12 and 13).
However, there is some uncertainty about theplantation population in China, with a differenceof 50 million trees based on the two sources of data
(Table 2). The most recent figures reported for China,
based on this study’s questionnaire, suggested atleast 30 million planted trees in Guangdong andHainan provinces alone.
Similarly, Viet Nam responded with an estimated
20 000–30 000 ha in plantation to a CITES
questionnaire in 2020, but responded with 16 000 hafor this study, while reporting 18 000 ha in 2018.
Lok and Zuhaidi (2019) reported 24 000 ha ofplantation in Malaysia, a figure that differs considerablyfrom that reported by Azren et al. (2018) (Table 2).
The Malaysia CITES website stated that 1 571 000
Aquilaria trees had been planted in Malaysia by theState Forestry Department and private plantationcompanies by 2017. The last census of wild trees in
Malaysia (2011–13) reported more than 1 million
stems (Table 2), with a basal area of 0.627 million m³(Lim et al. 2022).
Indonesia has not conducted a full census of its wild
agarwood tree species populations nor of the areaof plantations (Turjaman 2022). Earlier data fromIndonesia suggested that A. malaccensis is likely
restricted to the islands of Sumatra (tree density
estimated at about 0.4/ha) and Borneo (East and West
Kalimantan, tree density about 1/ha) (Soehartono
1999; Soehartono and Newton 2000; Partomihardjo
and Semiadi 2006). Soehartono and Mardiastuti(1997) considered the species to be virtually extinct
in West Kalimantan and populations were noted to
be depleted in areas of Sumatra including North
Bengkulu, Siberut (Mentawai Islands)18 and East
Kalimantan19. A census of G. versteegii in Indonesian
Borneo suggested a wild population of only 2 500
trees remaining (Sutomo et al. 2021). A survey
18 CITES PC14 Doc 9.2.2 A2
19 P C14 Doc 9.2.2 A235

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Table 2: Agarwood (mostly Aquilaria spp.) tree population estimates (sources: country presentations at CITES
agarwood workshops in 2015 and 2018, UNODC (2016), questionnaires for CITES (2020) and for this study,
and the CITES export database).
Country

Population or ha(CITES workshops
2015, 2018)

Population or ha(UNODC 2016)

Population or ha(Azren et al. 2018)

Population or ha(questionnaires
for this study***or CITES)

Exports (total kg
2016–2020)(CITES database)

Bangladesh**

6 000 ha ofplantation

6 000 ha ofgovernment
plantations> 800 000 trees

5 000 ha ofgovernment
plantations and
250 000 ha
private; plus 1
million seedlings
provided for homegardens

1 059 191

Bhutan

15 000 trees innurseries, 2 487 inplantations, 2 443
in home gardens,
827 in researchestablishments,
2 341 wild trees(total: 24 000)

About 23 000
20 000 trees
trees in plantations

8.6 ha ofplantation (CITES)> 100 000
seedlings planted

0.3

60 trees in homegardens (CITES).
> 1 million trees inplantations (80%A. crassna, 20%
A. malaccensis).
No estimate ofwild population

200 265

Cambodia**China

130 684 wildtrees, 73.8 million
trees on 24 607
ha of plantation*

About 130 000
wild trees

20 million trees on
5 300 ha planted

21 767 ha ofplantation in Hainan
and Guangdong
alone, with> 30 million trees

176

India**

10.5 to 11.5
million plantation
trees

About 10 million
plantation trees

10 million
plantation trees

10 million trees inplantations, plus an
unknown number
on company-owned
plantations (99%
A. malaccensis, <1% A. khasiana).
Wild population
estimated at:
387 576 forest
trees, plus another277 639 trees
outside of forests.

149 096

Indonesia

3.12 million
plantation trees

3.5 million
plantation trees

3.4 million
seedlings planted

No estimate ofwild population isavailable. 3.5 million
trees in homegardens andplantations

4 460 835

36

TS51

Table 2: Agarwood (mostly Aquilaria spp.) tree population estimates (sources: country presentations at CITES
agarwood workshops in 2015 and 2018, UNODC (2016), questionnaires for CITES (2020) and for this study,
and the CITES export database).
Country

Population or ha(CITES workshops
2015, 2018)

Population or ha(UNODC 2016)

Population or ha(Azren et al. 2018)

Lao People’s
Democratic
Republic

Population or ha(questionnaires
for this study***or CITES)

Exports (total kg
2016–2020)(CITES database)At least 950 wildtrees, and 6 600
ha of plantation(partial estimate,no data forsouthern areas)

40 6972 321 107

Malaysia

1 352 200 trees

1 million trees onplantations

1.2 million trees
1.11 million wild
planted on 1 300 ha stems (last census
in 2013). 1 571 100
trees on 2 500 haof plantations(in 2014), mostly
A. malaccensis

Myanmar34 475 trees inhome gardens,
680 ha of plantation
Plan to plant2 million trees

34 475 trees inhome gardens,
680 ha ofplantation

35 000 trees

864 ha ofplantation,
2 458 ha of mixed
spp. plantation

516

Nepal

500 000 seedlings
planted (by 2018),
600 mature trees< 1 000 trees inhome gardens

83 000 seedlings
planted last 4 years

0

Papua, Indonesia

No data available

281 749

Thailand**219 ha in homegardens, 1 111 haof plantation,
1 378 ha of mixed
spp. plantation(CITES). 1 825 hamixed species,
576 ha company,
individual andcommunity; 99%
A. crassna, < 1%
A. malaccensis
No data for wild
population.

3 257 595

Sri Lanka
Viet Nam**

18 000 ha
plantation

1 million trees
in home gardens,
18 000 ha ofplantations

1 million trees

No data available

20 51920,000–30,000
ha of plantation,
mostly A. crassna;“millions” in homegardens (CITES)
16 000 ha
plantation

567 548*D ata from country presentation at 2018 CITES workshop. Figures presented at 2015 workshop were 130 000 trees and 6 700 haof plantation.
** These countries only export agarwood products from plantations and home gardens.
*** Some figures were provided at the CITES agarwood workshop in 2022.

37

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

conducted in Indonesia for planted agarwood trees
was reported by Turjaman and Hidayat (2017)(Table 2). The most commonly planted species were
A. malaccensis followed by A. crassna, A. microcarpa,
and G. versteegii. Turjaman (2022) noted that the
habitat for wild agarwood-producing trees is decreasingin Indonesia due to forest fires, conversion of landto oil palm plantations, coal mining, and otherdevelopments.
The Lao People's Democratic Republic is in theprocess of conducting a national census of its
Aquilaria plantations. While it has already reported
about 6 600 ha of private plantations, there are also
many home gardens, government plantations, andsome large company plantations, the areas for which
are currently being determined. Plantations areprimarily A. crassna, A. sinensis, and A. yunnanensis
in mixed stands. Wild populations for trees > 10 cm
dbh have been determined mostly for protected areas,
and totalled at least 950 trees, primarily A. crassna
and A. baillonii, with a very few A. yunnanensis.

38

Recent reporting from India suggested that there areat least 10 million planted trees and another 650 000
wild trees (India presentation at the CITES meeting
convened to review this report in 2022). India reported
an identical number of plantation trees in 2015 andthese data were used to develop quotas for agarwood
harvest and possible export. Plantations in India are
all A. malaccensis and no other species is registeredfor cultivation. The other wild species in India,
A. khasiana and A. macrophylla, have uncertain
population numbers in the wild. Indian plantations
are government-owned, individually owned orcompany-owned and there are large numbers of
uncounted trees maintained by families in homegardens throughout Assam State. Most of India’s
plantations are young, with Assam, for example,
only allowing plantations starting in 2006.
Together, these data indicate that there are now likely
more than 60 million planted trees of Aquilaria spp.
among the range states, with more plantations being
started every year. As a result, there is an expectationthat much more plantation agarwood will enter themarket in just a few more years.

TS51

6 Management practices
Conservation
Trees of the agarwood-producing species now occur
in very low abundance throughout their range as aresult of overharvesting and deforestation. The low
percentage of trees with agarwood, and the fellingof trees in search of it, result in a huge waste ofthis resource.
Modelling of wild populations indicates that
A. malaccensis populations could be sustained if only
infected trees of 10 cm dbh or more were harvested.
However, for lower density species such as
A. macrocarpa, harvesting trees of under 30 cm dbh
on a less than 15-year rotation would continue toreduce the population (Soehartono and Newton 2001;
Kanazawa 2016). However, agarwood could be
harvested without killing the tree by carving out theaffected areas. In the case of A. malaccensis, the trees
are suitable for coppicing. For example, traditional
harvesters, such as the Indigenous Penan of Malaysia
do not fell the trees; rather they check the tree throughsmall holes and if they find agarwood, it is removed
with knives (Kanazawa 2016). A similar method has
been used in Viet Nam (Akter et al. 2013).
The main conservation methods applied at thenational level have been legislation against theharvesting of wild trees, enforcement of harvesting
regulations (see Chapter 4), export regulations
and quotas, listing tree species as endangered, anddevelopment of plantations to reduce the need forwild agarwood. Harvesting of wild Aquilaria spp. trees
is now illegal in most countries, with only Indonesia
and Malaysia still allowing it (with controls). The
latter two countries along with India and Thailand
have produced NDFs for Aquilaria spp. (particularly
A. malaccensis) and these can be important tools
in determining a sustainable harvesting level(see Chapter 2).
Some countries have developed specific protections,policies and/or management programs for agarwood(Table 3). At least four countries are also using assisted
natural regeneration to re-establish wild populations:
China, Malaysia, Nepal, and Indonesia (in Papua).
A useful approach to fostering recovery is employed in
Sumatra, where Indonesia has developed geographic
information system (GIS)-based maps of suitablelocations for either plantations or restoration of wild
agarwood populations (Ranmawaty et al. 2019).
This stratified information can be useful in analyzing
recovery efforts for Aquilaria and Gyrinops, given the
restricted conditions under which the some of these
species will grow.

In Malaysia, a set of guidelines issued in 2005 wasadopted for use by all states on the Peninsula to control
the harvest, trade, and processing of Aquilaria spp.,
and there are other specific guidelines used in Sabah
and Sarawak (Lim et al. 2022). For Peninsular
harvesters, a deposit of RM 10 000 (approximately
USD 2 600) must be paid for each licence, thelicence has a quota of 500 kg with a royalty chargeof 10%/kg, the licensee is required to supply 3 000
Aquilaria seedlings per year to the State Forestry
Department, only trees > 20 cm dbh can be cut
and flowering or fruiting trees cannot be cut, andthe licensee must report their harvest to the Forest
Department. The guidelines also have specific rules
by which traders and processors must operate (seeLim et al. 2022 for details). Exporters must registerwith the Malaysian Timber Industry Board, whichis the CITES Management Authority for Malaysia.
Agarwood products are subject to a production quota
assigned to each exporting20 company. In Sarawak,
all of the main agarwood-producing species,
including Aetoxylon sympetalum, Aquilaria beccariana,
A. malaccensis, and A. microcarpa, are listed asprotected plants under Sarawak's Wild Life
Protection Ordinance of 1998.21 Under the ordinance,
A. malaccensis is a “prohibited species” to be retained
when harvesting timber inside forest reserves. Bothstates require a licence for the harvesting and exportof agarwood species. Customs authorities in Malaysia
collect a 5% tax on all exported agarwood products.
In Indonesia, there are no restrictions on local
communities entering the forest or any timber
concession system to control the harvesting of
agarwood trees22, although there is a harvest quota
set for each province. In reality, however, it is notpossible to enforce quotas on small collectors inscattered villages, although anyone found carrying
agarwood without proper documentation risks having
their belongings confiscated. The enforcement of
harvesting quotas is stricter in Papua, where agarwood
20 https://cites-tsp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CITES-TreeSpecies-Programme-Regional-Meeting-for-Asia-and-Second-RegionalWorkshop-on-the-Management-of-Wild-and-Planted-Agarwood-Taxa25-to-29-June-2018-Yogyakarta-%E2%80%93-Indonesia%E2%80%93-Minute.pdf
21 https://cites-tsp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CITES-TreeSpecies-Programme-Regional-Meeting-for-Asia-and-Second-RegionalWorkshop-on-the-Management-of-Wild-and-Planted-Agarwood-Taxa25-to-29-June-2018-Yogyakarta-%E2%80%93-Indonesia%E2%80%93-Minute.pdf
22 h ttps://cites-tsp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CITES-TreeSpecies-Programme-Regional-Meeting-for-Asia-and-Second-RegionalWorkshop-on-the-Management-of-Wild-and-Planted-Agarwood-Taxa25-to-29-June-2018-Yogyakarta-%E2%80%93-Indonesia%E2%80%93-Minute.pdf

39Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Table 3: Measures to conserve agarwood-producing species taken by range states.
Country

Conservation measures

Management plan

Export quota
and/or NDF

Plantation controls

Bangladesh• No harvest of wild trees• Agarwood trading regulations (2012)

NoNo• Wood from plantations only

Bhutan• No harvest of wild trees

No

No

Cambodia• 80% of natural forest protected and no harvestof wild trees permitted• Develop plantations

No

No• Plantation registration• Harvests recorded

China• No harvest of wild trees• Assisted regeneration of wild population• Gene bank• Develop plantations in other countries• Strict import/export rules

Yes (2018–2022 forA. sinensis in Hong
Kong SAR, China)No• Plantation-growntrees barcodedIndia• No harvest of wild trees and no export of wild product• Gene bank
• Restock wild populations• Develop plantations• Export quotas

Yes, with asustainable
use policy

NDF andexport quota• Plantation registration(home gardens exempted)

Indonesia

 o harvest in protected areas•N•G overnment-provided seeds/seedlings for individuals•D evelop plantations•W ild population recovery programme

Yes

NDF andexport quota• Harvest certificate• Transport permit• Plantation registration• Quotas for wild harvestby province and species

Lao People’s
Democratic
Republic• Wild trees protected evelop plantations•D

No

In preparation• Only plantation wood exported• Plantation registration• Harvest certificate

Malaysia• Regulated harvest in reserve forest• No harvest in protected areas• Restoration of wild populations• Develop plantations

Yes, 2016
Conservation
Action PlanNDF and national
export quota• Harvest certificate• Export certificate

Myanmar• Export certificate• No harvest of wild trees• Develop plantations

No

No• Plantation registration

Nepal• Does not export agarwood• No harvest of wild trees• Seedlings provided to communities by government(c. 100 000/year)

No

No exports• No industry yet

Papua, Indonesia• Assisted regeneration in wildNo

NDF and quota• Harvester registration(with local chief)

Sri Lanka• Develop plantations

No

None

Thailand• No harvest in protected areas or of wild trees• Distribution map• Forest communities of > 10,000 people registerfor use as NTFP• Develop plantations

No

NDF forA. crassna• Registration systemfor plantation woodPhilippines• No harvest of Aquilaria spp. or removal of seeds
or seedlings from wild populations• Import permit for seeds or seedlings• Develop plantations

No

None

• Transport permit

Viet Nam• All wild trees protected• Government-provided seeds for home gardens• Develop plantations

No

None

• Plantation registration40• Transport permit

TS51

Figure 14: Indonesian procedures for collection, registration, and transport of wild agarwood domestically andfor export (Turjaman 2022).
Exporter/registered

National
traderAgarwood
local trader

Agarwoodcollector

CITES

Exportdestination
country

ExportpermitShipping/transportation
termitShipping/transportation
permitCollect
permitharvesters must obtain a licence from local chiefs.
Wild-harvested wood in Indonesia is neverthelesssubject to a number of regulations and to a registration
process, including certification as part of the export
quota for wood to be exported (Figure 14). Wild
agarwood exporters must be a member of theIndonesian Agarwood Association (ASGARIN)and have permits identifying them as ”overseas
distributors”.
The Indonesian rules for exporting agarwood apply towild wood only. While plantation-sourced agarwood
has been circulating on the market, the regulations
do not recognize the existence of artificial agarwood
and CITES data indicate that Indonesia exports onlya small amount of wood derived from plantations.
Agarwood farmers in South Kalimantan have soldplantation agarwood in the form of chips at low
prices to buyers who then mixed it with wild
agarwood of the same quality (class AB). Traders
have indicated that, if plantation agarwood is kept
separate for export, the price is too low to be worth
their effort (Turjaman 2022).
India does not allow the harvest of agarwood ingovernment forests, but there are populations ofagarwood trees that can be exploited in community
forests. The export of agarwood is prohibited in raw
form (including powder, flakes, dust and charcoal),but the export of agarwood oil and live plants ispermitted. The Government of India is currently
developing a registration system for agarwood growers,
agarwood distillers, and processors of raw to finishedproducts. Traders and exporters can purchase agarwood

Shipping/Transportation Permit (SATS), Domestic (SATA-DN),
Overseas (SATS-LN), Export requires CITES export permit

products through the system, called the LPC (Legal
Procurement Certificate), and subsequently trade
it within the country. Exporters can also purchaseagarwood through the LPC system and export itwith a CITES permit and a phytosanitary certificate
issued by the plant quarantine/plant protection
branch of the Ministry of Agriculture.23
Thailand and Viet Nam have formal registration
systems for plantation agarwood. Under a 2017 law,
the Government of Thailand has implemented
controls on CITES-listed plants, including plantationsof A. malaccensis and A. crassna, and established an
online national agarwood registration system. The
regulations govern cultivation under controlled
conditions and the legal acquisition of parent stockfrom private or state lands in Thailand or purchasedinternationally. Growers of agarwood must registersuch purchases electronically with the Department ofAgriculture, providing details including the nursery
number, parent plant stock number and the quantity
to be traded. In addition, all plantations are registered,verified by inspection, and must have management
plans that ensure sustainability. Starting in 2022,
plantation owners must inform authorities five days
before harvesting and detail which products(woodchips, oil, etc.) will be derived from the harvest.
Applications for export permits are thoroughly vetted
and all shipments are inspected by customs and23 https://cites-tsp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CITES-TreeSpecies-Programme-Regional-Meeting-for-Asia-and-Second-RegionalWorkshop-on-the-Management-of-Wild-and-Planted-Agarwood-Taxa25-to-29-June-2018-Yogyakarta-%E2%80%93-Indonesia%E2%80%93-Minute.pdf

41Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

quarantine departments (UNCTAD 2017). Similarly,
in Viet Nam, all A. crassna plantations operated bycompanies or households must be registered with
the Forest Department, which is responsible for
enforcing the regulations through local ranger
stations. Permits for transport must be issued before
wood can be moved from the plantation. In Viet Nam,
only plantation-sourced A. crassna can be legally
exported and trade in wild-harvested agarwood is notallowed. This is similar to the Philippines, where no
wild harvest is permitted and a plantation industry
was government-sanctioned in 2021. Harvestingof agarwood from the wild is also not permitted
in Thailand except on private land, and individuals
can possess only up to 1.5 kg of wild agarwood.
All exported wood must be registered and accounted
for along the value chain.
Agarwood plantations have become a major industry
in China, encouraged by the government since 1999.
All of the planted product is for internal use, withalmost none exported. While plantation trees arebarcoded, there is no regulation pertaining to theharvest, use, or transport of plantation wood within
China. As in other countries, the harvesting ofwild trees continues despite its illegality. China’s
management plan for A. sinensis in Hong Kong
SAR focusses on enforcement and protection of theremaining trees including by using remote cameras,
increasing research, restoring wild populations, raisingpublic awareness, and developing plantations.
Plantations have become a major source of agarwood
and represent a conservation and economic strategy
used by most countries to replace at least some ofthe demand for wild wood (Table 3). Large-scale
plantation cultivation of Aquilaria spp. has beenongoing since at least the early 1990s (e.g. Lok andZuhaidi 1996), and it has been common since the1970s for farmers in rural communities throughout
the range of these species to have Aquilaria trees
planted in home gardens. However, plantation
agarwood is widely perceived as being of lower quality
than wild agarwood (Chapter 4). There is also a
concern that, in the absence of wild stock and relying
only on plantations, the genetic variability within
and among species will slowly erode. Therefore, it isimperative that wild stock be conserved in sufficiently
large numbers to sustain genetic diversity at the
species level across the ranges of these species.
Planting Aquilaria trees has become common inIndonesia, and Turjaman (2022) suggested thatthe official figure of more than 3 million trees may
underestimate the real number by a factor of 10
or more, although it is uncertain if any of these42

trees represent assisted regeneration or if are all inplantations and home gardens. Under a recovery
programme for forests, the Government of Indonesia
has been supplying 25 Aquilaria spp. seeds or seedlings
to individuals to plant in a home garden or community
plantation. A. microcarpa is the species most widely
planted in Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Java, while
G. versteegii is commonly planted on the islands ofJava and Bali, with G. caudata mostly planted on
Papua (Turjaman 2022). Plantations in Indonesia
must be registered with the government. However,
the regulations are so onerous and complex thatthey seem to be restricting plantation development.
A shortage of inoculant and concern about thequality of plantation agarwood are also discouraging
people from entering the business. To remedy thissituation, two provinces (Lamandau Regency inCentral Kalimantan and Ambon City in Moluccas)
have built laboratories to deliver Fusarium solani
inoculants free of charge to communities engaged
in agarwood plantations (Turjaman 2022).
Malaysia, with project funding from ITTO
and CITES (see Box 1), released its action andmanagement plan for A. malaccensis in 2016,
although a new national inventory of agarwood
trees still needs to be completed (Chua et al. 2016).
The plan states that the species is not resilient tocurrent harvesting activities, that the downward trend
in nationwide abundance observed since the late1980s is continuing, and recognizes that trade is themost important contributor to the rapid decline of
the resource. The plan used data on tree density andgrowth based on sampling from a forest plot goingback more than 20 years (last census in 2013) andgenetic information derived from 35 sampled forest
areas to develop a strategy for conservation with thefollowing key elements:• In situ conservation of remaining trees with five
separate populations in each of the two significant
Peninsula genetic clusters, with at least 300 trees
each, of which at least 65 trees are > 20 cm dbh,with buffer zones of 200 m;• Only transfer genetic material within eachof the two genetic clusters;• Establish an ex situ plantation of 2 000 trees
as a gene bank;• Provide legal protection for the in situ sites;• Develop an inventory and monitoring protocol
and monitor periodically;• Develop a harvest quota based on inventory
at the state level;

TS51• Promote enrichment planting;• Work with stakeholders to improve management;• Improve enforcement; and• Create incentives for plantation establishment.
An early action plan for the conservation of
agarwood species was developed in 2008 for the
Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Cambodia, andViet Nam through Botanical Gardens Conservation
International (Gratzfeld and Tan 2008). This plan
was in response to declining populations in the Lao
People’s Democratic Republic, in particular, andincluded the following general components:• Strengthen institutional cooperation by bringing
together various stakeholders for planning activities;• Conduct capacity building and training foragarwood conservation;• Survey wild populations and develop species
recovery programmes including improved
silviculture techniques;• Establish demonstration projects to conserve
remaining wild populations and begin ex situ
propagation in village nurseries and local botanic
gardens, for reintroduction into the wild.
Cambodia’s plantation industry began operating in the
1990s and has expanded significantly in recent years,
so most trees, primarily A. crassna, are still young.
Harvesting in the wild is illegal, and plantations
must be registered with the Forest Administration(Sinly et al. 2022). The Forest Administration
evaluates proposals for export permits and issues
recommendations for their issue. However, it appears
that some some plantation companies have been
exporting wood without permits (Sinly et al. 2022).

Cultivation techniques
Box 1: The ITTO-CITES Programme(2007-2016) and the CITES Tree
Species Programme (2017-2022)
This innovative and effective programme wasdeveloped jointly by ITTO and CITES to provide
information and support for endangered tropicaltree species used in international trade. The
programmes have helped improve themanagement of many endangered tree species,
including agarwood species. Major funding hascome from the European Union (through theEuropean Commission) as well as other ITTO
donors, including the United States of America,
Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Netherlands,
Japan, New Zealand and the private sector.
The programmes aim “to ensure that international
trade in CITES-listed timber species is consistent
with their sustainable management andconservation". Funded projects have focused on:
management planning, inventories, developing
NDF reports, and developing tools for timber
species identification and tracking.
In the specific case of Aquilaria and Gyrinops
species, a large number of projects were fundedin Indonesia and Malaysia, resulting in NDFs, aspecies identification manual, genetic conservation
actions, a grading manual, and improvements
in silviculture and plantation effectiveness andefficiency. The programmes funded three importantinternational workshops on agarwood species in
2015, 2018 and 2022, bringing together exportingand importing countries to exchange information on
agarwood species management and conservation.

The natural process that produces agarwood starts
when insects, such as ants or stem borers, enter thetrunk of a tree, either through an existing wound or
by causing a new wound. The insects carry bacteria
and fungal spores that infect the tree, prompting itto produce resin as a defense mechanism. The resin
impregnates part of the heartwood of the tree toform highly aromatic agarwood. In wild Aquilaria or
Gyrinops trees, this process can be long and complex,
involving many physiological changes, as the tree
responds to the external stimuli of wounding and/or insect and fungal attack.
For many years, most cultivated agarwood was
produced in home gardens on small areas of private
land to supplement individual incomes. However,with the sharp decline in natural populations ofagarwood species throughout their range as a resultof overharvesting, agarwood production has becomea large-scale industry based on closely managed
plantations throughout much of South and Southeast
Asia (Mustapa et al. 2022). Some plantations weredeveloped by individual farmers or financed on farms
by individuals as an investment. More extensive
plantations have been established by private companies
or government agencies. The majority of trees planted
are A. crassna and A. malaccensis (Figure 15), while
A. sinensis is primarily planted in southern China(Azren et al. 2018), including on Hainan. Other
planted species include A. subintegra and A. hirta.
Survival of plantation trees exceeds 90% if correctly
managed and the climate remains favourable(Blanchette et al. 2015; Rahman et al. 2015). Many
farmers use an agroforestry system that integrates food43

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Figure 15: An A. malaccensis plantation in Assam, India. Photo: Syed Quavi

Figure 16: Mixed species plantation of A. malaccensis and banana plants in Pontianak, West Kalimantan,
Indonesia. Photo: M. Turjaman

Figure 16:

44

TS51

or fodder crops in areas between the Aquilaria trees(Figure 16). This system can include commercial
agriculture species such as oil palm, rubber, various
fruit trees, and some smaller crops such as cassava(Desa et al. 2021). In Indonesia, agarwood has beenplanted along the edges of many rubber plantations
and the owners inoculate some of the trees to produce
agarwood to supplement their incomes. In othercases, Aquilaria trees have seeded naturally and thenare inoculated by the farmers. Large commercial
plantations, however, tend to be monoculturesof Aquilaria.
Plantations of Aquilaria spp. grow best and withlowest mortality on sloping land with somewhat
sandy soils up to an altitude of 750–1 000 m andwith annual rainfall of 1 800–3 500 mm (Adhikari
et al. 2021; Devi 2021). The upper altitude limit
appears to be variable among the various species,
with A. sinensis growing up to an altitude of only
400 m (Anonymous 2018) and other Aquilaria spp.
growing at up to 1700 m in Malaysia. Plantations
on poorly drained and clay soil suffer high saplingmortality, although A. malaccensis will grow on mostsoil types. Ideal conditions for growth are moderate
tropical temperature, high humidity, fertile soil, andmoderate light intensity (Auri et al. 2021). Plantations
can be established by collecting and transplanting
seedlings, using cuttings, or by planting seeds.
Subiakto et al. (2009) found that the germination rate
for direct seeding was 82%, as compared to 42%
after seeds had been stored for eight weeks at room
temperature. Seed shelf life is very short at about
15 to 40 days at 25oC (Kharnaior and Thomas 2021).
For cuttings, the latter study found that the best
growing medium was an equal mixture of coconut
dust and paddy husk, watered twice a week.
Most plantations use a spacing of between 2 x 2 m
and and 3 x 3 m, for a density of about 1 000 to
2 500 trees/ha. Some very high-density plantationsof A. crassna were reported by Sinly et al. (2022),with more than 3 500 stems/ha (Figure 17) insouthern Cambodia, although the counts included
many saplings. Some of the smaller trees in thesesituations are destined to be moved to new plantations
or into local home gardens.
Recent droughts in parts of Southeast Asia (e.g.,
Thailand, Myanmar) have resulted in high agarwood
tree mortality in some plantations, indicating that,
under climate change, irrigation may become anecessity for some farmers and that some areas may
no longer support agarwood species. Recent studies
on drought tolerance indicated that A. malaccensis
and A. subintegra were much less resistant thanA. hirta (Kenzo et al. 2019).

According to information on A. malaccensis seedlings
provided by the Government of Malaysia,24 seedlingsof this species can be collected near parent trees when
they have reached a height of 10 to 15 cm. Seedlings
need to be handled carefully to ensure that the main
root is not damaged. The best time to collect seedlings
is in the morning during the rainy season and theseedling must be transferred to a polybag soon aftercollection. In the nursery, the seedlings should begrown in a soil with at least one-third sand andrequire watering several times a day. Seedlings canbe transplanted at a height of 60 to 90 cm. Seedlings
should be planted in a hole 40 cm in diameter and40 cm deep that, if left open for a few days, will
improve the oxygenation of the soil for root growth.
The soil should also be improved by mixing in manureor fertilizer and an application of soil insecticide.
Pruning can be carried out within 3 to 6 months, witha first corrective pruning to shape the tree and giveit a balanced canopy-stem ratio. Stands also need to
be tended to reduce competition. Lok and Zuhaidi(2016) suggested that during the first year an organic
fertilizer (with a nitrogen-potassium-phosphorus ratioof 8:8:8 plus trace elements) be applied at a rate of
100 g/sapling, and an inorganic fertilizer (with anitrogen-potassium-phosphorus ratio of 12:12:12 plus
trace elements) be applied at a rate about 100–200 gfrom the second to the fifth year. The frequency of
application depends on the conditions and growthof the tree. Lok and Zuhaidi (2019) reported that5-year-old A. malaccensis, with a planting distanceof 2.5 x 2.5 m, had reached > 10 cm dbh in Malaysia,
which is the recommended size for inoculation.

Inoculation of trees to produce
agarwood
The natural production of agarwood may take adecade or more, if it takes place at all (Naziz et al.
2019). Therefore, techniques have been developed
to induce the development of agarwood and speed
its production.
Small-scale farmers typically induce the developmentof agarwood by using low-cost tools and methods
such as screws, knives, nails and drills to repeatedly
wound the tree, starting when the trees are about
6 years old and have reached 10 cm dbh. Studies
in Viet Nam suggest that drilling a hole and keeping
it open with a small tube can improve results (Atkinet al. 2013; Blanchette et al. 2015). After 3 to 5 yearsof repeated nailing or drilling, the agarwood may besufficiently developed for harvesting (Chowdhury et
24 https://mycites.frim.gov.my/en/species/aquilaria-malaccensis/
management/overview/45

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

Figure 17: A high density (3500+ stems/ha) A. crassna plantation in Cambodia. Photo: Say Sinlyal. 2017; Rahman et al. 2015), although Akter et al.
(2013) indicated that farmers usually wait 5 to 10
years before harvesting and that the best production
is from trees that are at least 50 years old. Thesemechanical induction methods, however, usually
result in inferior quality and an uncertain yield of
agarwood compared to natural production (Chenget al. 2019). Agarwood is formed only in the
injured areas, suggesting that the amount ofagarwood produced depends on the number andmagnitude of injuries (Azren et al. 2019).
To further improve the production of agarwood,
researchers have developed techniques that are now
used on most plantations. Exceptions are plantationsin the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and someareas of Bangladesh, where physical wounding remains
the main technique. These techniques include
inoculation with various fungi (Santoso et al. 2011;
Suharti et al. 2011; Liu et al. 2013; Mohamed et al.
2014) combined with aeration (Chowdhury et al.
2017), and chemical induction (e.g. Liu et al. 2013).
Both techniques have been found to enhance
production of cultivated agarwood that is similar
to natural agarwood. However, some studies haveindicated that the chemical compounds found incultivated and natural agarwood are distinguishable(Espinosa et al. 2014; Blanchette et al. 2015; Azrenet al. 2019), although information was limited

46

especially for agarwood produced using chemical
inducement. Other studies have shown that different
production methods result in different amounts of thechemicals that give agarwood its aromatic properties(Naef 2011; Liu et al. 2013) and suggested that more
research is required to determine the best method
for the various tree species and the locations where
they are planted.

Fungal inoculation
The precise fungal pathogens and their mixtures used
as inoculants, along with the physical location of atree have also been found to have a large effect on theyield and quality of agarwood (Chippa et al. 2017).
Plantation agarwood is now regularly harvested only
a few years after inoculation and certain inoculants
have resulted in significant production of agarwood
after only 2 years (Mustafa et al. 2022). In Malaysia,
Lok (2010) and Lok and Zuhaidi (2018) indicateda rotation cycle of 4 to 8 years after inoculation,
depending on the species, growth performance, site
suitability, management techniques, and effectivenessof inducement.
Several fungus genera and species that result inagarwood production in Aquilaria spp. have been
identified using various methods (e.g. microscopy,
PCR, and ITS-rDNA), and from the various speciesof Aquilaria, including the following genera:

TS51

Figure 18: Inoculation of agarwood using the infusion method at the Forest Research Institute, Malaysia.
Photo: Kanako Ishii/ITTO.

Cunninghamella, Curvularia, Fusarium (at least four
species), Trichoderma, Paraconiothyrium, Botryosphaeria,
Fomitopsis, Lasiodiplodia, Penicillium, Epicoccum,
Alternaria, Acremonium, Colletotrichum, andPhaeoacremonium (Azren et al. 2019; Naziz et al. 2019).
Chhipa et al. (2017) identified 82 species of fungus
that result in agarwood, while cautioning that only
8% of fungi present in the trees have been studied
for their roles in agarwood production, and many
genera may not necessarily be responsible for the
resin formation. In Malaysia, research has identified
Aspergillus spp., Botryodiplodia spp., Diplodia spp.,
and Fusarium proliferatum as the key fungi resulting
in agarwood (Mohd Parid and Lim 2003; Rozihawati
et al. 2022). The types and combinations of fungi
reported vary by tree species and geographic location,
but consistent results for agarwood production occur
with Fusarium spp. (Akter et al. 2013; Chhipa et al.
2017). Santoso et al. (2011) found that agarwood
production in trees inoculated with Fusarium fungi
varied according to the location within Indonesia
where the fungi were sourced; they also found that
F. solani was the best species to use.
Aromatic compound types and qualities may varywith the type and mixtures of fungi (Chhipa et al.
2017). Recent research from Malaysia that tested
several combinations of fungi found that a combinationof Trichoderma sp., Lasiodiplodia sp. and Curvularia
sp. was the most productive inoculant for agarwood
formation in Aquilaria spp., based on the colorationand length of the infected zone after 3- and 6-monthinoculation periods (Justin et al. 2020). In China,
where much of the current fungal research has been
done, high quality oil production was reported withina period of just 8 to 18 months after inoculationof A. sinensis with Colletotrichum gloeosporioides andBotrysphaeria sp. (Tian et al. 2013; Peng et al. 2015).

Recent work by Ma et al. (2021) indicated much
improved agarwood from A. sinensis infected byusing fungi retrieved from infected wild trees.
Santoso et al. (2011) and Chong et al. (2012) reported
that the following field inoculation methods worked
best: (i) Drill injection holes of about 3–10 mm indiameter 20–25 mm apart to prevent agarwood
overlapping; (ii) The inoculant is delivered in liquid
form by injection with a syringe of about 1 ml perhole, or allowed to drip in from a bottle (Figure 18);(iii) The type of fungal strain determines the agarwood
that will be formed, so screening for the best fungal
strains is important;25 and (iv) The quality of the
agarwood formed improves with a longer
incubation time.
In Indonesia, Turjaman (2022) reported that on an
agarwood-producing tree of 15 cm dbh, six bottles
of infusion liquid (150 ml/bottle) may be used.
Fungal induction results in agarwood at the site of
infection, so many holes are often drilled in a tree
truck to maximize production, making this alabour-intensive technique.
Chen et al. (2018) used a fungus (Rigidoporus vinctus)
applied on the surface of A. sinensis trees to induce
agarwood and developed surface inoculation kits thatare available commercially for plantation owners.
Several other commercial fungal inoculation kits
are available, mostly from Malaysia and Indonesia(Azren et al. 2019). For example, Mustapa et al.
(2022) reported that the use of an inoculant called
IGB711 in Malaysia produced good results in lessthan 2 years. Artificially infected trees have yielded
between 5 and 30 kg of agarwood/tree after 18 months(Mustapa et al. 2022) in Malaysia, which is far
25 The best inoculant to use depends on local conditions, and local research
may be required to provide advice on the most effective inoculant for agiven area. Alternatively, inoculants produced commercially in individual
countries are available, also on the international market.

47

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

more than the 0.1 to 2.13 kg/wild tree (of which
0.10–0.18 kg/tree is high-grade) reported by Blaser
et al. (2021). Recent work has also assessed thepotential of chemically synthesized mycotoxins as
inducer agents, with successful agarwood production
in Gyrinops in Sri Lanka (Subasinghe et al. 2019).

In most countries, initial agarwood extraction isa labour-intensive task done by hand (Figure 19).
Despite the high cost of final agarwood products,
these workers and others, such as plantation
workers and haulers, are paid a very low wages
by plantation owners.

It is clear that considerable further research is needed todetermine which inoculation methods maximize theproduction of high-quality agarwood. For instance,
only a few of the many possible fungi and their
combinations have been tested. Further, multivariate
models need to be developed that consider alternative
explanatory factors that may affect agarwood
production, including variables such as location(including soil type and site), rainfall, age of tree,
diameter of tree, mixed vs. monoculture plantation,
as well as the species of Aquilaria or Gyrinops.

Other techniques

Chemical induction
Various chemical induction techniques using
phytohormones, salts, methyl jasmonate, soybean oil,brown sugar, formic acid, hydrogen peroxide, salicylicacid, and other substances have been employed toprompt trees to produce agarwood (Van Thanh et al.
2015; Kalita 2015; Chhipa et al. 2017; Cheng et al.
2019). Chemical induction is less time-consuming
than inoculation because fewer treatment sites areneeded, and the inducers are delivered throughout
the tree via its transpiration process. A study by Liu
et al. (2013) indicated that agarwood produced via
chemical induction was similar in quality to natural
agarwood and that yield was substantially higher
than from inoculation.
The ‘‘Whole-tree Agarwood-Inducing Technique’’(Agar-Wit) is a commercial product for producing
agarwood using chemical induction that is used in
China (Zhang et al. 2012). Other such commercial
kits include Ca-Kit and Agar-Bit (the latter combining
chemical induction and wounding) that contain an
inoculant for injection (Naziz et al. 2019). The Ca-Kit
indicates that users can expect an increase of 30% overnatural levels of agar production (Rahman et al. 2015),
but India reported (at the 2018 CITES workshop)that they had no success with this method. Similarly,
chemical inoculation in the Lao People’s Democratic
Republic has not been successful. It appears that
only China, some plantations in Bangladesh, and asingle plantation in Cambodia are using the chemical
induction technique, with all others using various
combinations of fungal inoculants.

48

There is a possibility that genomics research canidentify ways to to enhance or cause agarwood
production by identifying which genes are responsible
for resin production and how they are ”switched on”(Cheng et al. 2019; Naziz et al. 2019). If the correct
genes are sequenced, then mRNA technology could
be employed to cause the resin production that resultsin the formation of agarwood (Cheng et al. 2019).
Other possibilities to enhance production include
the selection and cloning of superior agarwood
production trees for breeding and out-planting ofseeds. Genomics and genetics research on agarwood
tree species appears to be of growing interest, basedon the number of recent publications on the subject(for instance, an internet search for ”gene + Aquilaria”
resulted on 2380 hits), particularly among Chinese
researchers working with A. sinensis.
It is worth noting that several biotechnology
companies have produced synthetic agarwood oil.
There is already commercial-level success with“bio-oud”, which is marketed at about one-tenth ofthe price of natural product and used in perfumes andsoaps. Most reviews, however, indicate that whilesufficient for use in some cosmetics the aromas differ
from the natural product in depth and complexity.

Insect and diseases in plantations
and phytosanitary measures
Planting most any tree species as a monoculture
invites health issues for the trees from pathogens
and insects (Wingfield et al. 2015), and plantationsof agarwood species are no exception. Plantation
managers are now finding various insects anddiseases in their plantations, some of which cause
tree mortality. The recent emergence of the industry
means that considerable work is still required to
identify and learn how to manage these challenges(Syazwan et al. 2019). The latter authors reported
that 19 insect pest species, from 16 different familiesof 5 different orders, and 12 diseases have beenrecorded so far and that many others are not yet
known. Most insect pests are sap suckers, borers or
defoliators, while the diseases are mostly root rots.

TS51

Figure 19: Labourers extracting agarwood from Aquilaria spp.trees by hand in Cambodia for further processing.
Photo: Say Sinly

In Indonesia, larvae of the moth Heortia vitessoides
have been problematic defoliators in plantations(Sitepu et al. 2011). Boring insects may actually
increase production of agarwood, as may be thecase for Neurozerra conferta (Borthaker et al. 2021).
In India, the fungus Fusarium equiseti is associatedwith the wilt and dieback of plantation A. malaccensis(Pandey et al. 2019). In China, on Hainan, there
is concern for A. sinensis in plantations owing to
infection with Colletotrichum alienum, a fungus thatcauses leaf mortality (Liu et al. 2020). The latter
authors indicated that about 35% of trees on theirstudy plantation had been infected. China, India,
Malaysia, and Indonesia have reported problems with
insects and diseases, while some other countries seem
not yet to have encountered these issues.
Most countries have phytosanitary laws and measureswith respect to the importation of seeds or other live
plant materials. For example, Thailand reported
that under its Quarantine Act B.E. 2507 (1964),
a phytosanitary certificate is required for plant
products imported into Thailand. Thailand also
issues phytosanitary certificates following therequirements of the destination country for live
material that is exported. In Cambodia, Sub Decree
No. 15 on Phytosanitary Inspection, article 2 specifies
that “All plant quarantine materials brought ortransported into, or exited from or transit in the

territory of the Kingdom of Cambodia shall beinspected and follow the Phytosanitary Treatment”,
and article 3 stipulates that the “Ministry ofAgriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is responsiblefor implementation of plant quarantine which has
Plant Quarantine Authority of Department ofAgronomy and Agricultural Land Improvement(as) implementing agency”. In India, The Directorate
of Plant Protection, Quarantine and Storage of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare inspects
agricultural commodities meant for export as per
the requirements of importing countries under theInternational Plant Protection Convention andissues phytosanitary certificates.

Home gardens and smallholder
livelihoods
In India, the integration of agarwood with tea plants
on smallholdings can add up to 45% to the total
annual income of a family (Sarkar 2019). As a result,most families with any land have some Aquilaria
trees planted on their property and buyers come toindividual homes and acquire trees that are suspectedof having agarwood. Also in India, planting of
agarwood trees in areas used for shifting cultivation
has been suggested as a supplemental livelihood
option for farmers (Giri et al. 2020), a possibility
to consider elsewhere as well.

49Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

A study in Bangladesh concluded that growing andharvesting agarwood in small farms had “a great role”
in increasing the income of small landholders andcommunities, but that farmers were constrainedby lack of access to technical information, capital,
and technologies (Marium et al. 2019). Nevertheless,Ali et al. (2021), who also studied small-scale
agarwood farming, found that financial returns
to farmers only occurred after a start-up period of
16 years, meaning that other crops are needed initiallyto enable agarwood production. The net present
value of 1 ha of agarwood plantation (over a rotation
period of 12 years) in Bangladesh was estimated to
be about USD 630 000 and the net annual return50

from agarwood-based enterprises was estimatedto be just over USD 10 000 per ha of plantation(Rahman et al. 2015). A study in Nepal suggested
that a 4-ha plantation with inoculated trees would
produce a net profit of about USD 490 000 per
rotation (Thapa et al. 2020).
In addition to the benefits to plantation and homegarden owners, many supply and support workers
gain employment in the agarwood plantationindustry. For example, nursery owners, tree sellers,and plantation workers in Bangladesh had monthly
incomes of USD 179–535, USD 119–476 and
USD 71–143, respectively (Ador et al. 2021).

TS51

7 Conclusions
The taxonomy of Aquilaria and Gyrinops species isat best confusing, with different scientific names forthe same species in several cases, and an uncertain
number of species in each genus. Conservationof the gene pools of these species requires clarity
regarding their taxonomy, so moving forward with aconservation agenda will require a revised taxonomy
for these two genera.
Agarwood products continue to be in high demand
for many commercial, medical, and cultural
applications. Based on CITES export data, the supplyof plantation product is increasing annually at a highrate, has already supplanted wild agarwood as themain origin of product in trade, and is set to increase
even more in the near future as more plantations
reach maturity. This does not mean, however, thatthe products are equivalent in quality; there willcontinue to be a huge demand for wild agarwood
from discerning customers, especially in the Middle
East. Based on the market prices, it is clear that
traders will pay considerably more for wild than forplantation agarwood, and traders in Indonesia haveeven said that they have difficulty selling plantationderived products. This alone should be sufficient
impetus for countries to actively manage their wild
populations sustainably.
The high demand for wild agarwood has had severe
negative consequences for the two main agarwoodproducing genera Aquilaria and Gyrinops in the formof vast and range-wide declines of their populations.
This demand will continue to put pressure on theremaining populations in the absence of proper
controls and a targetted and effective assisted
regeneration programme. There is no doubt, nor
has there been any doubt for decades, that all of the
agarwood-producing species have been unsustainably
harvested, with the consequent population declines
a result of both legal and illegal cutting coupledwith deforestation. Despite growing concern overthese declines, there is insufficient information about
several of these species for the IUCN to evenaccurately determine their status. For the major
species—A. malaccensis, A. crassna, A. khasiana,
A. rostrata, and A. macrocarpa—some few data do
exist, and the IUCN has listed them as criticallyendangered or endangered, with eight other species
recorded as “vulnerable” to extinction. There is also
insufficient population data on all of the Gyrinops
species for a population-based IUCN ranking,though most of these species are listed as

endangered by the range states. Difficulties indistinguishing among species and the declines in the
major species resulted in the blanket listing under
CITES Appendix II of all species in both genera,
and given the uncertainty around their populations,the listing is fully warranted.
It would appear that, in most cases, governments
have disregarded the abundant evidence of decline
over many years in favour of an unsustainable exportindustry. It took leadership from a very few countries,
notably India and Indonesia, to achieve the CITES
listing for these tree species. It is also certain thatmost government initiatives regarding agarwood arestill highly skewed towards use and plantations, rather
than the conservation of wild populations, and are
therefore not effective in promoting the long-term
persistence of the species in the wild (Chen et al.
2019). This lack of concern is evident in the absenceof valid NDFs for most countries (recent NDFs from
India and Thailand could not be evaluated in thisstudy), the paucity of population data (excepting
Malaysia, though the latest data are more than adecade old, and some data from India), and thevery low enforcement effort against illegal tradingand harvesting, as indicated by the few convictions
obtained. Capacity, of course, remains a major issue
for developing countries, but the fact that illegal
wood is still entering into Middle Eastern countries
clearly indicates that insufficient effort is being madeto enforce the existing controls. With the developmentof plantations, to their credit, some governments
have established registration and chain-of-custody
protocols for the export of agarwood products.
These processes, however, are still being used tosome extent to “launder” illegal wood (UNODC
2020; Lim et al. 2022).
Remarkably (but perhaps not surprisingly), the major
importing countries have done nothing to support
the conservation of wild populations in the range
states, despite providing ready markets for agarwood
and having made large profits based on theirimport/export businesses. As one example, donations
to support the CITES Tree Species Programme, whichfunds agarwood research, have been primarily
made by the European Union, which imports acomparatively tiny amount of agarwood. For theconservation of the agarwood species, and a continued
supply of wild products, major importing countries
and businesses need to reconsider how the demand
created by their businesses has affected wild agarwood

51

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

populations and step forward to provide some support
for improving enforcement and conservation activities
for these species. One mechanism would be toestablish a conservation tax on imported agarwood
that could be dedicated to the restoration andconservation of wild Aquilaria and Gyrinops in range
states. Since wild agarwood commands a much higher
price than plantation wood, it would clearly seem inthe self-interest of importers to assist in re-building
and protecting sustainable wild populations.
Agarwood production in plantations is becoming
an important business in South, Southeast, and partof eastern Asia. Cultivated agarwood also provides
income for the owners of home gardens and rubber
plantations, and employment for labourers incommunity plantations. Governments have supported
the development of plantation industries throughout
the range of these species and export data suggestthat it is replacing wild agarwood in international
markets. Nevertheless, the plantation industry has
encountered several difficulties including:• the lag time from planting seedlings to harvestingof agarwood of at least 8 to 10 years discouragessome farmers;• lower quality product as compared to wild
agarwood;• lack of capacity to distinguish plantation woodfrom wild agarwood leading to restrictions;• in some cases, onerous government regulation
for those seeking to establish a plantation;• lax chain-of-custody regulation in some countries
leading to uncertain product origin; and• the lack of credible and up-to-date NDFs
indicating sustainable export quotas.
There has been extensive research into how best to
inoculate plantation trees, especially in China andMalaysia. The results indicate that successful
agarwood production depends on an understandingof the fungi that are naturally present in agarwood
in a given locality, because the distribution of fungi
is variable even within countries. No one inoculation
technique seems especially superior to another,although wounding trees to trigger natural processes
has a low and slow rate of success. Most plantations
are using drip bottles to inoculate trees with fungi,
while a study from India failed to confirm thesuccessful results of using chemical inoculants
reported in China. While commercial inoculants areavailable, there is little to no research available as totheir comparative effectiveness, and most plantation

52

owners are using locally available commercial
products, which are often in short supply. Further
research is needed at the local level to ascertain thebest methods for inoculation in a given locality. Thereis also a need to build models that assess multiplecausal factors for agarwood production, includingsite factors, tree age, the timing of inoculation, andtree species, rather than just the inoculant itself.
Best practices for plantations vary between countries
and even among plantations and, because the industry
is relatively new, plantation owners and researchers
are still learning. However, detailed approaches tocollecting, planting, and inoculating trees s are now
available and have been provided in this report. It
seems that some plantation owners are harvesting
agarwood very early—after only 2 years or less—following inoculation. However, there is evidence
that the aromatic compounds gain complexity overtime and, as a result, that the quality of the
agarwood is higher if left in the tree longer. Given
the time it takes for the trees to grow to the 10 cm
dbh recommended size for inoculation, plantation
owners may be keen to realize some return on theirinvestments. However, this may amount tosacrificing product quality and possibly higher
longer-term gains.
Barcoding of trees, registration of plantations, andregistration systems for transport and export havebecome common and work well with sufficient checks
and enforcement. Concerns over distinguishingplantation from wild agarwood can potentially beovercome with DNA-based analyses, as well as byusing chromatography and spectrophotometry
methods. The challenges for developing countries to
conduct such analyses are cost, technical knowledge,
and the availability of equipment and staff. At theimport end of the value chain, more checking as
product enters a country would assist considerably
in combatting the illegal harvesting of wild
agarwood trees.
All species of the agarwood genera can be readily raised
from seeds in nurseries and out-planted. The genera
Aquilaria and Gyrinops can be restored in the wildwith focused conservation programmes, community
participation, and improved enforcement. As a result,the main obstacles to assisted natural regenerationand the restoration of agarwood populations arepolitical will, capacity, and funds to implement therelevant programmes. Several countries have embarked
on restoration programmes, but success will dependin large part on the enforcement of bans andrestrictions on harvesting to protect wild trees.

TS51

8 Recommendations
The following recommendations are based on thecurrent study and relevant recommendations fromthe 2018 agarwood meeting in Indonesia26. They are
divided into suggestions for range states, importing
countries, and for CITES for future Plants Committee
discussions. Some recommendations follow thosemade specifically for major range states Malaysia(Lim et al. 2022) and Indonesia (Turjaman, 2022)
but are applicable to all range states.

Recommendations for range states
Given the poor state of wild populations and the lackof good information on agarwood trees generally,
and the very high value commanded by wild-origin
agarwood, considerable and urgent work needs
to be done to conserve the wild populations thatremain, including:• Develop and implement periodic sampling toestablish population data for all agarwood species(in plantations and the wild), and develop proper
NDFs with quotas for all individual agarwood
species.
• Ensure protection of wild trees through improved
regulation and enforcement, and also possibly
through the expansion of protected areas.
• Establish and strengthen national/regional
databases for the identification of the origin of
agarwood specimens. The database could containsite-specific profiles (including DNA profiles) of
agarwood-producing species from range states.
• Increase the capacity and knowledge ofenforcement staff and customs officers to more
effectively reduce illegal harvesting and exporting.
• Establish a national registration system forplantation and wild agarwood.
• Develop a licensing system for traders (such as
India’s “legal procurement certificate”), with any
illegal activities by a trader resulting in the lossof the trading licence.
• Develop and implement online technologies tosupport the registration and monitoring process
for plantations, nurseries, and for exporters.

26 https://cites-tsp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CITES-TreeSpecies-Programme-Regional-Meeting-for-Asia-and-Second-RegionalWorkshop-on-the-Management-of-Wild-and-Planted-Agarwood-Taxa25-to-29-June-2018-Yogyakarta-%E2%80%93-Indonesia%E2%80%93-Minute.pdf• Control the acquisition of parent stock fromprivate or state lands, or purchased internationally.
• Verify all plantations through inspection.
• Apply transportation permits.
• Samples of the labels used and lists of exporters
should be communicated to the CITES Secretariat
by exporting states, and then provided to all
Parties through a Notification.
• Develop and implement conservation actionplans for the agarwood species, including acomponent for assisted natural regeneration.
• Consider creating a national agarwood species
fund that would collect fees paid by users ofagarwood-producing populations. The funds
should be used to strengthen the implementationof national strategies to ensure the conservationand sustainable management of agarwood species.
• Out-planting programmes for agarwood species
should consider genetic diversity within species
and should not move seeds, seedlings, or cuttingsoutside the distribution range.
• Range states might wish to consider negotiating
and agreeing to implement a common grading
system for agarwood products based on thearomatic compounds present, colour, or otherscientifically measurable characteristics.
• Range states should consider applying to funding
agencies such as the Asian Forest Cooperation
Organization, ITTO, the United Nations
Development Programme, and others for support
to develop their agarwood management plans.
• Technologies to distinguish wild from planted
agarwood exist; plans could be developed/
negotiated to establish regional service laboratories
to carry out such analyses.

Recommendations for importing
countries• Given the lack of funding for the conservation of
agarwood species, the major importing countries
might reflect on the damage already done to wild
populations and consider assisting range states torestore and recover wild populations, either directlyor through international agencies working towards
the conservation and sustainable managementof forests.

53

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered• Importing countries need to adopt technologies todistinguish between wild and plantation agarwood
and apply these technologies to samples ofincoming agarwood on a regular basis. Further,
importing countries need to upgrade the skills
and knowledge within their customs agencies
to ensure the legal importation of agarwood.

• The current CITES “glossary of agarwood
products” requires further work to reduce its
scope and ensure that there is clarity of the terms.

Recommendations for CITES• The Plants Committee should discuss further
with all range states whether the exemption of
exhausted agarwood powder from CITES controls
should be maintained.

• CITES should consider obtaining funding towork with a botanical garden (e.g. Royal Botanical
Gardens, Kew) to develop a clear taxonomy forthe two genera Aquilaria and Gyrinops, thenconsider listing the species individually, in partbased on whether they are agarwood species.
• It is clear that most countries have spentconsiderable time on developing plantation
methods, but limited time on understanding theimportance of an NDF; as a result, CITES should
consider working further with range states toprovide improved information and training
on developing an NDF.
• Parties to CITES should consider whether
additional agarwood-producing species (such as
Aetoxylon sympetalum, an important source ofagarwood in Sarawak) should be included inAppendix II to make international trade
regulations more comprehensive.
• Parties to CITES should consider whether
existing regulations and export quotas adequately
safeguard rare and endemic agarwood species
such as Aquilaria rostrata.

54• All products should be reported in kilograms,
except live specimens reported in numbers.
• “Wood block” and “piece” should be a single
category.

• Inconsistencies in the agarwood import/export
database should be addressed by working withcountries to develop consistent terms for products(in line with the glossary) and to specify that
products must be reported in certain units ofmeasurement. Further consideration might begiven to developing an online portal for direct
information input that will only accept certain
terms and units.
• Consider providing guidance on: a) the
appropriateness of establishing quotas based onweight or volume; b) the extent to which suchquotas relate to the number of mature standing
trees, using a precautionary approach; andc) focusing on the harvesting regime rather
than using standard conversion factors.

TS51

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Appendix: Questionnaire used to gather informationin selected range states
ITTO-CITES Agarwood Study – survey questionnaire for producing
countries and experts
February, 2022
Name: _______________________________________________________________________________
Affiliation: ____________________________________________________________________________

1.0 Populations:
1.1 Wild

Are census data available for your country on natural agarwood populations?
Yes _____

No _____

If so, please indicate total population (in ha or number of estimated trees): ___________
1.2 Planted

If available, please specify the area of agarwood plantations (ha) for the following:
Gardens

Mono-species

Mixed-species

State owned
Community owned
Individual/family owned
Company owned
Other
1.3 NDFs

Do you have an existing NDF for any agarwood species? _________
If so, which species? (Please attach the NDF if it is a public document) ______________
If so, what year was the NDF produced? _____ Has it ever been updated (year)? ______

2.0 Species
2.1 Please indicate the approximate relative abundance of the main agarwood producing species in wild
populations in your country please report as species % of all agarwood trees:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

61

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

2.2 Please indicate the approximate relative abundance of the main agarwood producing species
in planted populations in your country, please report as species % of all agarwood trees:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

3.0 Distinguishing plantation agarwood from wild agarwood products.
3.1 Does your country have ongoing research attempting to enable distinctions between natural vs.
plantation derived agarwood? ________
If so, has there been success? ____________
Please explain any techniques that can distinguish natural vs. planted agarwood products:

4.0 Production techniques
4.1 Please list the most commonly used techniques used to produce agarwood in your country:
1.
2.
3.
4.
4.2 Please indicate the main fungi species used in your country by tree and fungus species, if possible:
Infection technique

62

Tree species

Fungus species used

TS51

		

5.0 Population management
5.1 Please describe the main management techniques to ensure that wild populations persist in your country:

5.2 Please indicate the main practices for plantation establishment and management in your country:

5.3 Does your country require any phytosanitary measures for plantation product export? Please explain:

6.0 Products
6.1 Please list by approximate amounts, the relative amounts of products produced by your country
1. (e.g., sawn wood 20% of harvested volume, xx kg)
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

63

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered

6.2 Registration: Does your country apply a registration system for exporters of pure or mixed
agarwood products?
If yes, please specify the registration system and since when it was applied?

64

In August 2019, the 18th CITES Conference of the Parties adopted
decisions intended to strengthen the capacities of national authorities tocontrol trade in agarwood species. The CITES Secretariat is implementing,or facilitating the implementation of, these decisions, which included acall for a study on agarwood-producing species.

EXPENSIVE, EXPLOITED AND ENDANGERED

Agarwood (also known as eaglewood and gaharu) is produced in several
Asian countries for use in incense, perfume and small carvings. It is formed in
the heartwood of (mainly) Aquilaria and Gyrinops species trees when they
become infected with a type of mould. Prices of up to USD 100 000 per kg
have been recorded for top-quality agarwood, leading to unsustainablelevels of extraction and the listing of all species of Aquilaria and Gyrinops
in Appendix II of CITES since 2004.

51

TECHNICAL SERIE S

Expensive, Exploited and Endangered
A review of the agarwood-producing genera Aquilaria and
Gyrinops: CITES considerations, trade patterns, conservation,and management

OCTOBER 2022

This report on agarwood-producing species, which is jointly published by
ITTO and CITES, examines the cultivation, inoculation technologies andbest management practices of agarwood-producing species and reviews
wild and planted agarwood resources as well as processing technologies,
products and regulatory practices. The report builds on the outcomes andrecommendations of workshops on agarwood convened by ITTO andCITES in 2015, 2018 and 2022.
The most recent workshop, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in June 2022,
was attended by 50 experts from range and importing States withexperience in agarwood management in the wild and in plantations,who critically examined a draft of this report and provided inputs andrecommendations for its finalization. The report and its recommendations
for all stakeholders will be considered at the 19th CITES Conference of
the Parties in November 2022, further contributing to more effective
implementation of CITES provisions for these important tree species.

© ITTO and CITES Secretariat 2022

ITTO TECHNICAL SERIES 51

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