Ironically, it was a well-intentioned diktat for protecting sandalwood that delivered the knockout punch. In 1996, in an example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions, the central government decided to regulate the export of sandalwood and its oil by imposing export quotas. It set up a system of raw-sandalwood auctions. One could export the oil only if one bought the wood.
That move constricted supply and jacked up the price of Indian sandalwood oil. Today, it costs anywhere between Rs. 65,000 per kg if it is extracted from smuggled wood and Rs 1.5 lakh per kg. of genuine source material. India has out priced itself from the market, while Australia has positioned itself as the dominant supplier of sandalwood and its oil. It has also started growing Indian varieties.
Ironically, India will soon begin buying sandalwood oil of the indigenous variety grown in Australia.
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“Indian sandalwood oil is priced at Rs. 65,000 per kilo which is easily twice the price of sandalwood oil from Australia and three times the price of African sandalwood oil. According to Kapoor selling such a product at a global level is impossible.” On top of that, it takes inordinately long to get an export license. The first set of export licenses were issued in 1998, almost two years after the first auction.
“How could you wait for two years before delivering an export order? No international client will wait that long,” says Moraddhwaj Saini, another erst-while distiller. The bigger problem as a distiller and exporter is the lack of surety about obtaining the next license and thus guaranteeing regular supplies to one’s clients overseas.
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Kapoor finally brought down the curtains on their distillation plant and set up another small unit the by gathering sandalwood dust. Kapoor’s distillery is one of 22 such distilleries in Kannauj was the last to be closed down. An offshoot of a century-old sandal oil distillation business, Indian Fragrances & Chemicals used to make 800 kg of oil a month belongs to Kapoor’s family has been shut down in 1998.
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A Fading Fragrance:
One obvious fallout of the unabated increase in sandalwood prices is that it has totally distorted the character of Kannuaj’s traditional attar industry.
In the 1970s, attar made from top-quality sandalwood oil sold as a personal fragrance; that from inferior quality oil went into making incense and flavoring pan masala.
When oil prices shot up, attar as a personal fragrance became prohibitively expensive. Already, preferences were changing towards modern perfumes; this hastened the process.
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By the start of the 1980s, attar manufacturers turned to the other domestic industry which was coming up in a big way — the pan masala and tobacco industry. But attar producers had to meet the price compulsions of pan masala and tobacco industry, so they began substituting sandalwood oil with liquid paraffin and other similar compounds as the base ‘note’ or layer. “How can a gutkha a mix of pan masala and tobacco sachet continue to be priced at just Re.1 all these years when sandalwood oil prices are shooting through the roof?” asks Saini. “Attar manufacturers had to find some way to substitute sandalwood oil.”
Today, 90-95% of all attar manufactured in Kannauj is used for flavoring pan masala and tobacco. Only around 10-15% of all attars use sandalwood oil primarily because the main consumers of attars are the pan masala industry do not want to increase the retail prices of their products.
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Of the 5 percent attar produced as personal fragrance, almost all is exported to West Asian countries like Saudi Arabia.
“Perhaps it may not be wrong to say that a whole generation has gone by without really knowing what true sandalwood oil-based attar really smells like,” say Pradeep Kapoor with a wry smile.
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He also belongs to the same family which started the first distillation and perfume factory in Kannauj. His family firm, Jagat Aroma, moved out of the sandalwood distillation business and now exports fragrance components to foreign perfume manufacturers like Lancome, Tom Ford and G’ Issey.
Double Whammy:
The story of India’s loss doesn’t end here. In the late 1990s, around the time that India’s grip on the sandalwood oil trade had begun to loosen, Australia spotted an opportunity and started working on a unique project: It started developing plantations of the Indian variety of sandalwood.
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Australia’s indigenous variety of sandalwood, Santalum Spicatum is decidedly inferior to the Indian variety, Santalum Album in terms of oil content. For that reason, Australia was till then a bit player in the sandalwood export market.
This however did not deter the Australian government to put in place the Sandalwood Act of 1929 to ensure the regeneration and sustainability of the most valuable commercial wood in the world. The Act mandates that only a percentage of sandalwood is available for harvest each year and for every tree cut down, a dozen seeds must be planted.
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At present there are about 20,000 hectares of sandalwood plantations of different ages and species in Australia. Most of these plantations are in Western Australia. The Forest Products Commission (FPC) which governs the state-owned sandalwood resources of Western Australia claims to be the largest supplier of sandalwood resources in the world.
As per the information sources there is about 15 to 17 ton of sandalwood oil produced a year in Australia with expectations of this increasing as the plantations mature. The majority of the oil goes overseas with little consumption in Australia and in a roundabout way, India might end up with about 20% of the exports says Tim Coakley, executive chairman of the Wescorp Group of Companies. Wescorp Sandalwood Pty Ltd is the sole processor, marketer and exporter of Santalum Spicatum for FPC. It is expected that Australia would start exporting the Indian variety of sandalwood oil to India in the course of the next three to seven years.
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“It’s really a shame how we have managed to ruin a sector where we enjoyed undisputed dominance. It is the result of over regulation” says Pradeep Kapoor.
Western Australia claims to be the only region in the world that can guarantee harvest of approximately 2,000 tons of sandalwood each year on a sustainable basis. In India exporters like K.N. Kapoor have to shut shop because they are not sure about the availability of sandalwood or the availability of export license.
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Sandalwood Legislation in Australia:
Licensing for the harvesting of sandalwood is managed by the Department of Parks and Wildlife under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. It replaces the Wildlife Conservation Act 1950 and the Sandalwood Act 1929. The new legislation will enforce tougher penalties for illegal activities including unlicensed harvesting as well as improving trading and processing accountability.
The commercial harvesting of sandalwood on Crown land is controlled under the Forest Products Act 2000 and the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. The Forest Products Commission (FPC) is responsible for the commercial harvesting, regeneration, marketing and sale of wild Western Australian sandalwood from Crown land including land subject to pastoral leases.
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The sandalwood harvest limit is prescribed in the Sandalwood (Limitation of Removal of Sandalwood) Order 1996 (the Sandalwood Order) and is set on advice from the Minister for the Environment and approved by the Governor in Executive Council.
The Sandalwood Order took effect on 1 July 2016 and set the annual quota at 2,500 tons with a maximum 1,250 tons of green wood.
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The new volume will be processed to service our current international markets over the next 10 years and will support the ongoing sustainability of the industry.
The illegal harvesting and theft of sandalwood is a significant issue and is currently being addressed with the introduction of new legislation. The FPC is also working with the Department of Parks and Wildlife and the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, who have regulatory responsibility under the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act 2012 (Commonwealth) to implement an assurance system which will assist to demonstrate legality and compliance with relevant legislation.
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The End of the Road?
But not all is lost. If the government wants, it can still work towards developing India’s sandalwood forests, especially by roping in the private sector and we can regain our lost dominance” says Saini.
“Look at how the paper industry thrives in the US, Canada or the Scandinavian countries,” points out Pradeep Kapoor. “They have a proper re-forestation policy. Here the government never involved the private sector who stood to gain the most from sustainable exploitation of the sandalwood forests.”
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In Canada it is a pretty straightforward deal. The forests remain the government’s property but are given to private players on a long-term lease of 100 years or more. This allows private players to plan better. For each tree that is cut, the company must plant two new ones. The state monitors the way the forests are being managed. Apart from the lease money, the government earns through local taxes.
Bangalore based environmentalist Leo Saldanha says, “If we allowed sandalwood to be farmed and there was an excess of supply then automatically it can intervene against thefts taking place and today it is very easy to steal it.”
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But he feels leasing forests to companies is not a solution for India because human densities in our forests are much higher. While travelling for days in the Canadian and North American forests you won’t find anyone he says.
“When you bring in industry just to make sure sandalwood farming takes place, the natural result would be that local people are denied their natural and rightful access to those lands” he adds.
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Saldanha’s solution is to allow tribal and forest dwelling communities to farm these valuable trees. “In reality, it is the local forest dwellers that catch the poachers, not necessarily the forest department officials. By and large protection to sandalwood comes from the local forest communities since it has cultural and religious sanctity for them.”
A very senior Indian Forest Service official, who requested anonymity, says India would have to ban all use of sandalwood for 20 years before we can regenerate that sandal wealth. Pradeep Kapoor says “Waiting would be both good and bad. Bad because no oil distiller can wait for such a long time and good because the move will get us back on track.”
Protect the forest by involving the communities, the birds will carry the seeds and do the job of planting and sandalwood’s regeneration potential will take care of the rest, says Saldanha. “It’s a very healthy tree; you don’t have to do anything.”
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An Evergreen Aroma:
Traditionally, all attars were sandalwood oil based because of the unique ability of sandalwood oil to lose its own mild fragrance and absorb another. The other reason for its use is the remarkable stability it provides to the perfume. It is generally held that well made attar based on sandalwood oil would smell just the same even after 100 years.
However, paraffin-based attar should not be expected to hold the fragrance for even a full year. Moreover, it lacks the medicinal qualities of sandalwood oil. “Sandalwood oil was the best fixating agent. That’s why it was valued. It was the base note over which the pyramid of an attar or perfume is structured” explains Pradeep Kapoor, a former attar maker.
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OSK REDDY
OSK REDDY
Founder at S.Kumar's Group of Companies and Green Universe Environmental Services Society
Published • 8mo
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