History of Sandal Wood Plantation, Chi Phat Eco Tourism site, Tmar Bang district, Koh Kong province

(Written by Ty Theavy)

This is a plantation of the villager’s sandal wood trees. This kind of tree there were not before in the village, and it is almost not available to collect them in the jungle. For ages the sandal woods have been purchased in the top price for a raw material of the perfume. They were started to plant by villagers in the 1980s. Growing them in the village here does not look like growing by themselves in the jungle because they were diligently watched over and looked after daily as though a baby. This is because they were hammered by wood worms. So it is utilized a poisonous pray to kill the worms annually. Sandal wood costs 600$ a kilogram. However there are some villagers do not decide to sell it to the buyers because they can make it into a real perfume by themselves. That is, the sandal woods were cut and grounded and then put its dust in a small cistern of water. A fortnight later when it is available to see its oil soared on the surface of the water, they start to take it into a syringe. The oil taken in the syringe is a pure perfume. But before this plantation, the villagers always hunted the sandal wood in the jungle and it took the villagers several months to capture the sandal wood with a good hard core.