Aquilaria malaccensis explained

Aquilaria malaccensis is a species of plant in the family Thymelaeaceae. It is found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, also Thailand. It is threatened by habitat loss.[1] The World List of Threatened Trees (Oldfield et al., 1998) listed Iran as one of the countries at the population of A. malaccensis. The exploratory 2002 CITES review confirmed that Iran has no record of the species. As a result, Iran is no longer considered as habitat for or producer of agarwood.[2]

Economics

See main article: Agarwood. Aquilaria malaccensis is the major source[3] of agarwood, a resinous heartwood, used for perfume and incense. The resin is produced by the tree in response to infection by a parasitic ascomycetous mould, Phaeoacremonium parasitica,[4] a dematiaceous (dark-walled) fungus.

Threats

Due to rising demand for agarwood, as well as shortcomings in monitoring harvests and an increasing illegal trade, A. malaccensis is on the brink of extinction in the wild and is now considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. Due to large-scale logging operations, many forested areas where A. malaccensis was once abundant have been destroyed.[5]

Conservation

Despite its endangerment, Aquilaria malaccensis is highly adaptable also can perform well in areas contaminated by pollution. Due to this, conservation plans have been set in place to raise agarwood in contaminated areas as well as homestead gardens.

Notes and References

  1. Barden, Angela (2000) Heart of the Matters: Agarwood Use and Trade also CITES Implementation for Aquilaria malaccensis Web site: Archived copy . 2007-08-25 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070927014949/http://www.traffic.org/news/agarwood.pdf . 2007-09-27 . TRAFFIC International, Cambridge,
  2. http://www.cites.org/eng/com/pc/14/E -PC14 -09-02-02-A2.pdf page 47
  3. Ng, L.T., Chang Y.S. and Kadir, A.A. (1997) "A review on agar (gaharu) producing Aquilaria species" Journal of Tropical Forest Products 2(2): pp. 272-285
  4. formerly Phialophora parasitica Crous, P. W. et al. (1996) "Phaeoacremonium gen. nov. associated with wilt and decline diseases of woody hosts and human infections." Mycologia 88(5): pp. 786–796
  5. Web site: Home gardens and polluted fields are helping conserve this perfume source. india.mongabay.com. en-US. 2018-10-21. 2018-10-18.