At this time of the year, the land across Thailand’s upper northeast is full of greenery. The annual monsoon feeds and sustains these agriculture-driven provinces.
But despite first appearances, things are not right. Across dozens of sustainable agarwood plantations, trees are dying en masse. These are not regular trees, but some of the most valuable in the world.
For thousands of years, the fragrant resin known as oud that sometimes forms naturally inside wild aquilaria trees is highly prized. Referred to as “liquid gold”, the trees’ resin is distilled and used as one of the world’s most luxurious ingredients for perfume.
The essential oil, with a musky aroma, is one of the most expensive of its kind in the world – it varies in price based on purity, but can attract about US$200 per ml – due to the difficulty of harvesting it and its rarity. Other byproducts of agarwood are bakhoor and incense, long used in China, India and the Middle East.
In Sakon Nakhon, a province that flanks the border with neighbouring Laos, agarwood – also known as the wood of the gods – now appears to be a failing industry.
Drought has bitten hard on one small aquilaria plantation, visited by CNA. Row after row of trees have been left brittle and parched, able to be simply pulled out of the ground and piled onto a heap by workers.
At another plantation nearby, damaging floodwaters have left similar results. A small cluster of trees, close to maturity, appear close to being ready for harvest; the rest are dead.
“The trees have been growing well over the last three or four years. But they have faced drought and flood. Previously the weather was okay. No drought. But in recent years, it’s worse. They have gradually died,” said Thaowan Pha-inn, a 60-year old plantation worker.
