Better management of agarwood

ITTO and CITES have released the report of the Asian regional workshop on the management of wild and planted agarwood taxa, held in January 2015. The workshop comes in response to CITES Decision 15.95 revised at its 16^th Conference of the Parties in order to identify strategies to balance the conservation and use of wild agarwood populations, while relieving pressure on these by using planted material.
 
Agarwood is a resinous wood that forms in species of Aquilaria, Gyrinops and several other genera native to Southeast Asia. These species produce a dark aromatic resin in response to infection by a type of fungal mould. This resin-embedded “agarwood” is highly valued for its fragrance and is used to produce incense, perfumes and various other products.
 
The report covers topics such as (click on the links to download relevant presentations):

• formulation of non-detriment findings (NDF) for agarwood
• the role of plantations in balancing harvests from natural forests
• management and silviculture of natural agarwood
• plantation grown agarwood: potential resources and management
• managing agarwood-producing species in natural forests and in plantations
• current agarwood trade trends
• country reports from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam

 
The report also contains draft decisions to be considered at the 22^nd meeting of the CITES Plants Committee to be held in October 2015 for possible adoption at the 17^th Conference of the Parties in 2016.
 
The workshop was co-funded by CITES and ITTO, the latter through the ITTO–CITES Program. It was hosted by India’s Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (Wildlife Crime Control Bureau).
 
For more information on ITTO and the ITTO-CITES Program, visit www.itto.int.
For more information on CITES, visit www.cites.org.