How have new agarwood plantations helped indigenous people around the world?
RB: The high value of the material that is produced has the potential to help many people around the world. We now have plantations in Vietnam in which local farmers are growing the trees. We’ve transferred the technology of how to produce the resin to these farmers. We have also decided that we needed to have some sort of a market to quickly help the farmers get their products out to people and so we set up a company to do that. VM: What do you see in the future for the sustainable production of agarwood? RB: Well, this is the first sustainable production of agarwood in the world. Any other agarwood materials are actually not being produced in a sustainable way. They are most likely illegally cut and shipped from natural forests. This is really the first bona fide, sustainably produced agarwood. We’re hoping to have projects in many other countries, such as Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia. We’re helping poor people where this material is grown and bringing it to the market so every
