Sandalwood
The sweet, soft-balsamic aroma of Santalum album is immensely popular in perfumery and as an ingredient in up-market body care products. In aromatherapy, sandalwood is used mainly for its calming effect on the nerves and for skin treatments. Sadly. Sontalum album is found mainly in the heartwood and roots of mature trees, thus the tree must be felled in order to harvest the oil.

Few sandalwood trees are left in the Indonesian archipelago due to over exploitation, while relatively recently discovered supplies in Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific are in danger of being squandered by local villagers, who fell them before maturity. Of the traditional areas in Southeast Asia where sandalwood is found, only India has made a significant effort to create sandalwood plantations, all of which are government owned. However, this parasitic tree is notoriously difficult to cultivate because the seed will usually only germinate once it has passed through a bird.

Despite the Indian government's restrictions on the trade in sandal­wood (which allows a limited amount of the essential oil to be traded on the world market), clandestine cutting and smuggling remains a serious threat to the species, causing law and order problems in areas bordering the state of Tamil Nadu. Smugglers have bribed hundreds of villagers to take part in illicit cutting and carrying, paying them twice as much as they can earn performing forest chores for the government. Alas, the gangs will often stop at nothing to secure their bounty even murders have been committed in the name of sandalwood! The poached wood is taken north to the distilleries and incense factories of Utter Pradesh and Bihar. Much of the illegally distilled oil finds its way to Indonesia from where it is sold to traders throughout the world.

Another major threat to sandalwood in southern India is season’s forest fire, usually started by graziers and others employing unsustainable methods of land usage through ignorance of the need to maintain biodiversity. The fierce heat renders the trees susceptible to spike disease. A sandalwood tree infected with this mycoplasma organism usually dies within three years. There is no doubt that it would be advantageous to reduce the world demand for sandal­wood. The only way to ensure such an outcome is for us to stop buying it! The Asian trade in sandalwood and other endangered species will continue unabated, but this is no reason for other countries to be complacent. Some have argued that there is nothing wrong in using sandalwood oil if it can be obtained from a legal, traceable and sustainable source. Indeed, moves are afoot to establish such guarantees.

However, the real issue is that certification will give the product an ethical image and increase its desirability to the eco-minded - the very people who would choose not to buy the product if presented with the whole picture! Awarding organic status to a consignment of oil will do nothing to curb the illicit trade in sandalwood, which is playing a major role in the tree's demise. Wherever the tree is growing, there will always be someone lurking in the shadows awaiting the opportunity to hack it down.

As an alternative to precarious Asian sources, there is growing interest in Australian sandalwood (Santalum spicatum). The Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) in Western Australia is overseeing the supply and sustainability of sandalwood stands for extraction. A huge amount of money has been poured into the project, and so the producers of the extract (as we shall see, 'pure essential oil' is a misnomer) arc doing their utmost to sell it to aromatherapists (among others).

Although plantations are being established, the newly planted trees will take at least 30-50 years before the oil content, found mainly in the heartwood, becomes economically harvestable. In the meantime, trees will continue to be felled mainly from wild stands in the arid interior. In such harsh conditions, it can take 100 years for a tree to grow sufficiently large enough to meet harvesting criteria. Quite a different picture from that painted by the producers who are claiming that trees as young as 15 years can produce a viable amount of essential oil.

Producers are also estimating that even without a replanting programme, there are enough trees to continue exploiting for 100 years. What is forgotten is that the demand for the product is likely to escalate as Asian sources continue to diminish and pressure mounts to expand or maintain the harvest - even if it is not sustainable. Indeed, as Ian Kealley from CALM points out. 'It will take a strong government and industry to resist the financial incentives not to over exploit'.

One process used to obtain the extract involves a combination of solvent extraction and steam distillation (authentic essential oils are extracted solely by steam distillation or by cold expression in the case of citrus fruit). Another process extracts the aromatic entirely by solvents. The favoured solvent is hexane - a highly toxic petro­chemical - because it has been found to extract the maximum constituents from the wood.

The resulting aromatic liquid is quite different in chemical structure from an essential oil as it includes non-volatile elements that are never found in steam distilled oils. Although virtually all traces of the solvent are removed from the finished product, of more serious concern is the potential adverse environmental impact. No matter how careful the extraction process (the solvent is continuously recycled) some will escape into the environment. For this reason, truly holistic aromatherapists shun all solvent extracted aromatics, including the ubiquitous jasmine absolute. Certainly the use of hexane in the extraction process will preclude Australian sandal­wood from gaining certified organic status.

Recent studies indicate that the properties of Santalum spicatum extract are anti-microbial, fungicidal and anti-inflammatory. However, few people realise that the producers of the extract were also directly involved in the commissioning of acute dermal and oral toxicity tests on animals carried out by the Danish laboratory Scantox in the year 2000 (currently unpublished research). And yet, the aromatic is an ingredient in certain 'cruelty free' cosmetics sold in the USA and Australia! Needless to say. I have reported this unsavoury truth to the Australian animal rights organisation Choose Cruelty Free and they have promised to investigate.

Rosewood
Rosewood trees (Aniba spp) are severely threatened, with few mature trees left standing. The species A. roseaodora from the Brazilian Amazon Basin is on the verge of extinction resulting from over-exploitation by the perfume industry. The essential oil is found in greater abundance in the roots and heartwood of mature trees, which necessitates felling. It is estimated that 3000 rosewood trees (of several species) are still felled annually for the extraction of essential oil.

Contrary to one popular myth, rosewood plantations have not been around since the 1930s! All evidence shows that the tree has always been cut down from the wild, hence its severe decline. Research carried out by the Global Trees Campaign confirms that there have been attempts in recent years to establish rosewood plantations, but they have not been greatly successful. However, the current AVIVE replanting project in the Silves area of Brazil is looking more promising because the tree seedlings are being nurtured in their favoured wild forest habitat fortunately for these plants it is not their destiny to be ripped from the Earth for commercial gain. Essential oil can be extracted by distillation of clippings of leaves and branches (even of fairly young trees) to provide a non-destructive and truly sustainable source of oil.

Indeed, from the distillation project supervised by WWF-Brazil. AVIVE will soon be providing an assured source of sustainable rosewood leaf/branch oil. To ensure that local workers are not exploited, the price received for the essential oil will be higher than the usual market price in accordance with guidelines set by the international Fair Trade scheme. Due to the scarcity of rosewood trees in the region, however, the amount of oil produced will be limited and available from only a handful of essential oil suppliers.

Unfortunately, at this time the aromatherapy profession is less enthused about rosewood leaf oil because its aroma and thera­peutic properties are regarded as inferior. In aromatherapy, rosewood oil is used mainly in external applications (e.g. massage) to alleviate nervous tension and anxiety through its sweet, woody-rose fragrance. Therefore, it's absurd to believe that rosewood leaf/branch oil, whose aroma is only marginally different (i.e. with an additional citrus-like top note) from that obtained from heartwood, could be noticeably less effective for addressing emotional dishar­mony. Any essential oil whose aroma is pleasing to the recipient has the potential to enhance mood and reduce stress when applied therapeutically.

A word of caution: once word spreads about a sustainable source of rosewood leaf/branch oil, chances are the aromatherapy market will become flooded with 'ethically harvested' rosewood oil. (Indeed, similar has occurred with sandalwood, with some suppliers seriously claiming to sell oil produced only from trees blown down in storms!) Therefore it's advisable to boycott rosewood oil, as many enlightened therapists and traders have been doing so for over a decade - that is, unless indisputable documented evidence of its provenance and sustainability can be acquired from the supplier.

The way forward
As a final word, it is incumbent upon us all to educate ourselves about the products we use in our daily lives, and to be ever vigilant and never afraid to speak out against that which we perceive to be environmentally or socially misguided. Ask awkward questions of suppliers and encourage them to investigate the provenance of every herb, essential oil and related product they sell. Above all, never underestimate the power of the Green coin. By choosing what to buy and what not to buy, together we can change the ethics of business and industry.