Growing ‘The Wood of The Gods’: Agarwood Production in Southeast Asia - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 245

within a relatively short time the harvest was over and took place without any form
of control. It did not only involve the local population but it attracted also large num-
bers of migrants invading indigenous territories. All major stands of agarwood trees
have been exploited. In a kind of second or even third harvest people even dig up roots
of trees in the swamps which might still contain some agarwood.
At the same time however a church based organization (Roman Catholic) has
initiated a project to start the cultivation of agarwood. The project consists of three
elements: the cultivation of Aquilaria trees, the technique of inoculation and the
practice of harvesting. The main purpose of the project is to help the people in gain-
ing a more sustainable form of livelihood. Nurseries are set up using seeds from a
number of mature Aquilaria trees. The seedlings are being planted in combination
with other annual or perennial crops. The cultivation fits nicely with other agrofor-
estry practices promoting the planting of crops like rubber, dammar, sago, cashew
and a wide range of other trees.
The process of inoculation can only be done when the trees have reached a mini-
mal diameter. It is assumed that trees should be at least 10 cm in diameter and at least
five or six years old before they can be treated. Holes are drilled and a fungus is
placed in them. It is assumed that harvesting should not take place before one year
after the inoculation of the tree, but the longer the harvest is postponed the more
agarwood the tree will contain. Harvesting in itself is probably the most difficult
aspect of the cultivation process, determining very much the quality of the agarwood
chips and thereby the price of the product. One needs to carve out the infected wood
carefully. The project is assisted by a scientist from the Mataram University on the
island of Lombok who has gained some training and experience abroad. As yet there
are no processing or distillation units available in the area. The chips are being sold
to intermediate traders who eventually will trade the agarwood to Singapore.
At present some 400 farmers are involved in this project, each having planted
twenty or more seedlings in their home gardens and agroforestry plots. It is hoped
that the investment in agarwood seedlings, land preparation, tree care, inoculation
and final harvesting will bear fruit in the near future. Whether this will in the long
run also lead to some activities in the field of agarwood processing is not yet clear.
It will require additional expertise and investments while in the end it is still the
agarwood trader who determines the price of the product in whatever form it is
offered to him (Ogi 2007).
12.6 Protection
As a result of serious overexploitation of agarwood from the wild, a number of
measures to protect the Aquilaria trees, and thus ensure the survival of the trees in
the lowland forest of Southeast Asia, have been taken. Production of cultivated
agarwood seems to be a logical way out of this problem. Cultivated agarwood could
simply replace the 'wild' agarwood. However, some representatives of conservation
organizations point to an apparent lexical confusion as one of the main obstacles in