Opportunities for the smallholder sandalwood industry in ... - ACIAR

120,000
100,000
Seedlings planted
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0
Namamau Kauri Natapoa Nangai Mahogany Sandalwood Whitewood
Species
Figure 7.
Seedlings planted across 15 islands in Vanuatu between 2000 and 2006 for six indigenous (kauri—Agathis
macrophyla, namamau—Flueggea flexuosa, nangai—Canarium indicum, natapoa—Terminalia catappa,
sandalwood—Santalum, whitewood—Endospermum medullosum) and one exotic (mahogany—Swietenia
mahogany) tree species
All sandalwood gatherers were involved in the trade
and/or planting of sandalwood. It is conspicuous that
60% of the households ‘gathering sandalwood’ were
involved exclusively with its planting. These households
may have fully exploited their wild custodial
resources and are now in the process of replanting, or
may be households without any historical ownership
of wild sources of sandalwood. While it is not possible
to determine the proportion of these two categories, it
is likely that part of the 60% represents a completely
new source of sandalwood, which will help in distributing
the economic benefits of the species more
equitably. Regardless of the demographic makeup of
this category, it is encouraging that households planting
sandalwood represent a much greater proportion
than those harvesting for sale (Table 1).
Planting sandalwood in Vanuatu
Sandalwood occurs naturally on eight main islands of
Vanuatu (Santo, Malekula, Efate, Erromango, Aniwa,
Tanna, Futuna and Aneityum), but another eight
islands have areas with climatic and edaphic conditions
suitable for its production (Malo, Aore, Ambae,
Pentecost, Ambrym, Epi, Paama and Shepherd)
(Gillieson et al. 2008). The latter eight islands, all
north of the central island of Efate, have little to no
planted sandalwood established in smallholdings.
Establishing sandalwood production over a wide
geographical area will enable the Vanuatu industry
to increase overall volumes.
In recent years, smallholders have begun to plant
sandalwood seedlings in garden areas within the
swidden agricultural system; these trees persist in
the regenerated forest after the garden is abandoned.
Early growth of sandalwood trees in such systems is
greater in newly established than in older (3–4-yearold)
gardens. Sandalwood seedlings are also being
established in native forests as enrichment plantings
and within the village as ‘specimen’ plantings.
Between 2000 and 2006, the annual planting rate
was 14,270 sandalwood trees (99,890 trees in total),
which was significantly (P < 0.05) greater than for
the previous 7 years (1993–99) when the annual
planting rate was 478 trees (3,346 trees in total)
(Figure 8). Therefore, 96% of the sandalwood plantings
recorded in the 2006 survey occurred between
2000 and 2006 (Figure 9). These were established
by 305 smallholders, with an average of 327 trees
per smallholder (Table 2). Approximately 86% of the
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