The world’s largest producer of Indian sandalwood will plant another 1500 hectares of timber this year, but for the first time the bulk of its plantings won’t be in Western Australia. Source: ABC Rural
Tropical Forestry Services (TFS) will this year spread its plantings across three regions – the Ord Valley in Western Australia, Katherine in the Northern Territory and, for almost half the plantings, the Burdekin region of Queensland.
TFS’s Peter Wilson says demand for the product has made the company look beyond its traditional growing area in the Ord.
“We’re looking to grow more sandalwood which means spreading to new regions,” he said. “We’ve learnt a lot in the time we’ve been growing trees in the Ord River region and we know enough about soil, water and climatic conditions to be able to grow beautiful trees wherever we can find those conditions.
“I think we’ll continue to be planting trees as long as people continue to keep buying trees or paying us to manage trees.
“The growth (of the business) has been phenomenal, and if you chart the growth, it’s been quite a curve.”
TFS owns and manages around 5000 hectares of Indian Sandalwood in the
Kimberley’s Ord Valley, which is the world’s largest plantation of the tropical timber.
Earlier this year, the company paid $13.25 million for land near Katherine and a further $4.5 million for Midway Station in the Douglas Daly (NT).
The company is due to begin planting on its new land at Katherine next week.
