Aussie sandalwood on a path towards extinction in the wild

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-10-07 00:01

Australia; NSW; SA; WA

Credit Jean and Fred, Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/jean_hort/51177298182, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Australian sandalwood is one of the most valuable timbers in the world, but 175 years of commercial harvesting has decreased the population of wild sandalwood by 90 per cent and put it on a path to extinction, according to an Australian review of data. The authors say has already been eradicated throughout much of its range, particularly in southwest Australia and in SA, where only small populations persist. In WA, the commercial sandalwood harvest quota has been reduced, and a regeneration program implemented but the authors say neither measure is likely to alter the continued decline in wild sandalwood populations.

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Research CSIRO Publishing, Web page

Journal/
conference: The Rangeland Journal

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Charles Sturt University, Curtin University

Funder: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.The research undertaken for this review was conducted as part of a PhD undertaken by Richard McLellan partly funded through an Australian Research Training Program scholarship from the Institute of Land, Water and Society at Charles Sturt University, and a grant from the Hermon Slade Foundation.

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