Growing ‘The Wood of The Gods’: Agarwood Production in Southeast Asia - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 240

Agarwood Project which was partially funded by the European Commission. TRP
started in 1993 in An Giang and Phu Quoc Island, two of the three last remaining
areas with highly endangered and isolated Aquilaria crassna populations in the
Mekong Delta. The third Aquilaria growing area in the Mekong delta is situated
around Ha Tien City on the border of Cambodia and the gulf of Thailand, in Kien
Giang province.
In An Giang Aquilaria crassna was still growing in the early 1990's as the result of
natural propagation around a dwindling number of large mother trees. In 1993 only 13
larger, over 20 year old seed producing trees remained, with several hundreds of smaller
trees providing regeneration. One plantation of around 50 trees had been established
several years earlier. Phu Quoc still contained about 30,000 ha of disturbed, but viable
lowland tropical forest at the time with some Aquilaria trees remaining. The Forestry
Service of Kien Giang had planted about half a hectare in the early 1990s. All in all the
entire Aquilaria crassna population in the early 1990s in the Mekong delta consisted of
just a few thousand genetically closely related Aquilaria crassna trees. Today, at least
half a million trees are growing in the delta in home gardens and plantations.
Photo 12.2 Preparation of Agarwood (Aquilaria crassna) seedlings in An Giang, Vietnam (©GA
Persoon)