Aloeswood Forest and the Maritime World

Abstract

Aloeswood is one of the most valuable minor forest products of the Southeast Asian tropical rain forests. Borneo is a center of Aquilaria spp. and many people are collecting aloeswood from upriver mountain ranges. The collected materials are sent downriver to the harbor cities and thence to Singapore, the largest commercial center of aloeswood, where merchants gather from Arabia. Bangladesh and China. Seventy percent of aloeswood is sent to Arab countries and the rest to the China area. Artificial plantations of Aquilaria spp. and various experimental trials to produce aloeswood are being made by local researchers and merchants.