Cropwatch 7

Threatened & Vulnerable Aromatic Species:

A List of Essential Oils Recommended by Cropwatch Not to Be Used in Cosmetics/Perfumery.

Copyright © Tony Burfield Oct 2004 & Jan/Feb 2005.

Preamble.

Commodities from aromatic species that are ecologically at-risk are used in the aroma industry (: perfumery/cosmetics, flavourings, aromatherapy and incense products). Burfield (2003) has previously tentatively identified these items for the perfume industry and Burfield & Wildwood (2004) have identified them for the aromatherapy profession. In this tabular & more detailed format, this list of aromatic commodities used in perfumes & cosmetics from threatened and at-risk species, first drawn up by the author in October 2004, does not reflect disruption in the supply of aromatic raw materials caused by extremes of weather in Florida and the Caribbean during 2004, or yet by the Tsunami disaster, the result of the fourth largest earthquake this century which took place off the coast of N. Sumatra in the Indian Ocean region on 26^th December 2004. This event regrettably took a terrible toll on human life and has caused immense disruption & suffering. The disaster outfalls have also subsequently affected the supply and/or price of a range of raw materials such as Patchouli, Nutmeg, Cananga & Cinnamon oils, amongst others (Patchouli plants Pogostemon cablin being grown in several affected islands such as Melaboh and Loksuemawe in Aceh, and Nias Island).

At the time of writing (Jan 2005) oil traders report that Sandalwood oil Indonesian & East Indian is pretty well unobtainable - even previously available small parcels of oil (sometimes adulterated with polyethylene glycol 600, or East Indian and/or Australian Sandalwood oil), which sold for the unprecedented price of $1,000/Kg. Small lots of Sandalwood oil from Sri Lanka, Vanuatu & other Pacific Islands, New Caledonia & even China, have  become increasingly rare. Rosewood oil supplies are described by oil traders (Dec 2004) as ‘critical’. The ability of the relevant authorities in these producing areas to control smuggling of Sandalwood and other threatened species is therefore expected by Cropwatch to be increasingly tested (see smuggling section below). The planting of tracking chips by the US Forestry Service into ginseng plants (Fallik 2003), and by the State of Kerala’s Forestry Dept. into Sandalwood trees, may present a useful technological advance in defeating the wholesale smuggling of plants [American Ginseng: Panex quinquefolium is a critically threatened medicinal plant according to Plant Savers (Zarella 2004); the number of Sandalwood trees in Kerala's Marayur Forest has dropped from 62,000 to 55,000].

References:

Burfield T. (2003) “Unethical Use of Rare & Threatened Plants and Animal

Products in the Aroma Industry.” Endangered Species Update May/June 2003 Vol 20(3), 97-106.

Burfield T. & Wildwood C. (2005) “Cropwatch 5” www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~nodice/ new/magazine/cropwatch5/cropwatch5.htm  

Microchip Protection For Sandalwood - 26/11/2004 see:  http://www.nzforestry.co.nz/nzf_archive.asp?viewarchive=yes&articleid=2275

Zarella C. (2004) “Watching the Wildcrafters” E Magazine 01.03.2004.

The Myths around the “Sustainable Production” of Essential Oils.

The ideal of solving ecological sustainability issues for commodities “through the eye of the market” has become a popular concept. Making indigenous forest peoples the custodians of biodiversity; rewarding them appropriately via Fair Trade schemes; promoting initiatives between NGO’s and farmers to grow ‘at-risk’ species commercially are commonly (and perhaps over- simplistically) reeled off by oil sellers as a panacea to the situation. Further, the mention of obscure geographic origins for sourcing these “sustainably produced” aromatic commodities further tends to confuse the true picture. The reality of continuing to trade in at-risk species is, however, much more complex than traders would often have customers believe, and Margolis, in an article that seems to me almost to have a touch of black humour about it, provides some examples of misguided commercial enterprise in promoting commodities from Amazonian Forest Schemes (Margolis 2004). The subject is touched on further under the “Some Misunderstood Terms” and “Quotes” section below.

Reference

Margolis M. (2004) “Jungle Economics; Environmentalists thought they could save the Rain Forest and make money at the same time. They were wrong.” Newsweek Internat. 16.02.2004.

A List of Essential Oils Recommended by Cropwatch Not to Be Used in Perfumery

KEY

Please note: The  lists in this article are not exhaustive, and do not generally include low risk/near threatened species such as Cupressus sempervirens (Cedarleaf oil) and Callitris columellaris (Australian Cypress pine oil).

Chakrabarty et al. (1994) had earlier described the agarwood trade in India, pinpointing some 200 distilleries in Hojai, Nilbagan and Islamnagar in the Naogoan district of Assam, and describing the distillation process in detail. The authors describe difficulties in establishing the legal licensed basis (if any) for many of the distilleries in the above locations, and similarly for the agarwood extraction businesses in Manipur, and also the  problems in estimating the extent of illegally acquired agarwood from India and Bhutan - in addition to that smuggled via Myanmur. The main destination for agarwood, chips and dust appeared to be the United Arab Emirates (especially Dubei), Saudi Arabia, UK and Bahrain.

Harris T. (undated), a US-based businesswoman selling aromatic raw materials including Aquilaria qualities, reflects on knowledge of the agarwood situation in Laos, gained via a personal 3-week visit (see http://www.enfleurage.com/ac-agarwood-2.html). Harris argues against a total ban on agarwood oil trading which she maintains is not necessary; the argument seems to be somewhat tenuously reasoned on the hedonistic pleasure that the products give at this present moment in time, although elsewhere in the article Harris refers to very large numbers of plantation trees which exist in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, thereby implying a continued harvest (presumably of A. crassna at least). This was not the conclusion of the Trade & Legislation workshop group at First International Agarwood Conference, Viet Nam, November 2003, which concluded “plantations are not the stand-alone answer to long-term supply of the global Agarwood trade.”

A second argument against maintaining the unfettered free trading in this valuable commodity, as even TRP have conceded on their website, is the fact that the establishment of agarwood plantations will not necessarily reduce the demand for agarwood – they may well increase it. Meanwhile it is generally agreed that the natural occurrence of Aquilaria spp. in the wild across India, Indonesia etc. generally continues to decline, in spite of the establishment of plantations in various widely-spread locations. A scenario where the survival prospects for Aquilaria species are ultimately dependent on privately owned plantations is not a prospect that every ecologically-minded person would relish, and the essential oil trade itself has many disaster stories connected with failed commercial plantations, across a number of oil-bearing species. It is also apparent that although Harris is preoccupied with the survival of Aquilaria species per se, perhaps in order to continue to be able to market valuable commodities from the genus, the negative effects for biodiversity of slash and burn, creeping agricultural production in forest areas plus agarwood monoculture in these areas, are not clearly spelled out in her article. Thus, whilst arguments surrounding issues solely concerning Aquilaria species sustainability might be put forward, true ecological forest sustainability with its existing biodiversity (i.e. holistic forest management) probably cannot. So, my conclusion is that the somewhat profane use of agarwood oil in high-class perfumery – which is the principal issue with which we are concerned here - seems to serve no good purpose, apart from any attached merchandising gain from its advertised mention as a novelty ingredient, and could be positively harmful to the ecological status of Aquilaria spp. by adding to the demand for the commodity.

Harris in her article further describes a highly energy-intensive preparative distillation process for agarwood oil, which is said to occur over 7 days (in contrast to the 30-36 hour Assam process as described by Chakrabarty et al. 1994), but fails to mention any relevant carbon neutral issues. Harris also argues to the effect that botanical classification of agarwood species is not currently practical at the point of trade, since (if I understand this correctly), Harris maintains that traded items like oil and chipped wood are impossible to back-classify. This may be a perfectly valid position in countries with an absence, or a refusal to implement, batch-tracking practices. On the face of it, it would not easily be solved in a perfect world even by employing the appropriate advanced analytical botanical & chemical education & training either. However The Plant Bulletin of the Agri-Food & Vetinary Authority of Singapore (Jan. 2004) describes the documentation procedures for the export, import and re-export of agarwood species which were not classified in Appendix II of CITES at the time (such as block, chips powder or oil of Aquilaria filaria), suggesting that this might not be such a universal problem as Harris suggests.  One can’t help feeling that this type of argument cited above reflects a tendency amongst agarwood ‘cultists’ to resist all methods of scientific investigation & classification - these would be useful tools to demystify areas such as agarwood quality assessment procedures, which are connected to ethnically - & culturally - based rituals.

Finally the article also rails against alleged shortcomings in the evidence leading to IUCN and CITES classifications for Aquilaria spp. – again familiar arguments used in incense-product trading circles to justify continued agarwood trading. Nevertheless it has to be remembered that the Republic of Indonesia itself (which claims to be the largest agarwood producer) was the proposer for the inclusion of all agarwood producing species of Aquilaria & Gryrinops which were currently not in the Appendices of CITES, at the Thirteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties on 3-14 October 2004 in Bangkok, Thailand. Further Harris’s arguments, from the somewhat rosy-tinted perspective of an agarwood commodity seller, presents a gently indulgent and sanitised picture of agarwood trading – with no mention of gangland, smuggling/illegal trading or any ugly exploitation of indigenous gatherers by exogenous collectors, which is widely reported elsewhere – for example in Central and East Kalimantan, Sumatra, Papua New Guinea etc. Further, as Momberg et al. (2000) infer, threats from outsiders can affect traditional ways of more sustainable gaharu gathering turning them towards more intense & destructive practices.

In spite of these deep misgivings, I recommend readers make their own minds up by reading the article by Trygve Harris at the above mentioned URL, which I feel makes an important contribution to understanding the attitudes and knowledge surrounding agarwood commodity trading.     

references:

Chakrabarty K., Kumar A. & Menon V (1994) Trade in Agarwood WWF-India/TRAFFIC India, New Delhi

Momberg F. et al. “Exploitation of Gaharu, and Forest Conservation Efforts in the Kayan Mentarang National Park, East Kalimantan, Indonesia” in People, Plants & Justice – The Politics of Nature Conservation ed. Charles Zerner Columbia University Press, NY 2000.

Phillips D. (2005) – business advisor to TRP – private communication Jan. 2005.

Wollenberg EK (2001) "Incentives for collecting gaharu in East Kaliantan" Economic Botany 55, 444-456.

Yamada, I (1995) "Aloeswood Forest & the Maritime World" Southeast Asian Studies 33(3), 181-187. 

Notes (data complied from various sources Including):

Burkhill IH (1966) A dictionary of economic products of the Malay Peninsula Vol: 2 Ministry of Agriculture & Cooperatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Aquilaria beccariana van Tieghem is:
syn. Aquilaria cumingiana (Decne) Ridley var. parviflora Airy Shaw
syn. Acquilaria grandifolia Domke
syn. Gyrinopsis grandifolia Quis (– also found in Borneo, Malaysia, Sumatra).

Aquilaria crassna Pierre ex H. Lecomte is:
syn Aquilaria agallocha auct., non-Roxb (1832)
(Cambodia, S. Vietnam and Thailand; becoming very rare).

Aquilaria hirta Ridley
syn. Aquilaria moszkowskii Gilg. (– found in parts of Malaysia, Singapore, E. part of Sumatra)

Aquilaria malaccensis Lamk (1783) is:
syn. Aquilaria agollacha Roxb. (1832)
syn. Agallochum malaccense (Lamk) Kuntze (1891)
syn Aquilariella malaccensis (Lamk) v. Tieghem (1893).

A. malaccensis reportedly found in India (especially NE India), Burma, parts of Malaysia, Sumatra Bangka, Borneo, the Phillipines, Japan, Thailand, some parts of Cambodia and Vietnam, and other parts of the very Far East. A. agallocha found in the forests of S.E. Asia including within India: Assam (Nowgong-cachar), Nagaland (Naga), Meghalaya (Khasi, Karo Hills), Bangladesh, W. Bengal (Darjeeling), the hills of Manipur and Tripur, and elsewhere: Bhutan, Burma, Myanmar, Western China, Japan, Vietnam, Sumatra, Phillipines (Luzon), Cambodia, Borneo & Iran. Some regard A. agollocha is a truly distinct species – see TRAFFIC REPORT by Broad S (1995) “Agarwood Harvesting in Vietnam.” TRAFFIC Bulletin- Wildlife Trade Monitoring Unit 1995 15(2), 96 Traffic International.

Aquilaria microcarpa Baillon - occurs in some parts of Malaysia, Sumatra, Belitung, Bangka and Borneo.

Aquilaria sinensis Sprengel is syn. A. grandiflora Benth. : Southern China

The Santalum genus is represented by some 25 semi-parasitic species, all possessing fragrant woods, occurring throughout SE Asia, Australia and the Pacific. Sandalwood oil East Indian has traditionally occupied an important place in perfumery because of its sensual, radiant and long-lasting woody odour, good fixative properties and its ability to combine with other aromatic raw materials such as rose, jasmin, patchouli, orris, bergamot & lavender etc. to give pleasing effects. There is now pressure on all sandalwood species resulting from the over-exploitation of Santalum album in India and Indonesia, and whilst global demand is in excess of 200 tons/annum, the market has struggled to supply 50 tons in 2004 (Cropwatch data).