Rosewood trees in the Thailand-Cambodia-Laos region and elsewhere, and Burmese Teak are being overly exploited too feed the growing appetite for carved furniture and flooring. In China, an intricately furniture crafted in an antique style could fetch one or two million US dollars.
An alternative flooring material is bamboo. Its as hard as teak but it has no grain pattern (as it is in the grass family) and does not last as long. Teak is the best in decay, insect and termite resistance (check out the longest and oldest teak bridge in Asia - U Bein Bridge in Myanmar). Other alternatives are palms like Coconut and Sugar palm, surprise surprise. The planks (can't really call them timber) from palms appear to have black fibers surrounded by a lighter coloured body. The center of the tree is soft and does not have any vascular bundles. This is contrast to the tropical tree species where the outer sapwood and heartwood could be both as hard. The wood of these palms are usually harvested after they have passed their time of fruit-bearing of 50-70 years. Both species are not listed in the CITES Appendices or on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Palm "wood" flooring
Oncosperma tigillarium or Nibong is a candidate to join the two species in alternative flooring material. In addition to being decay-resistant, it is also saltwater, borer and termite resistant. Its current use is in building boats, for poles in kelongs, and the large marine fish traps used in Malaysia and Indonesia. However, even this alternative are being over-harvested, and kelong owners who traditionally use them as piles have to switch to hardwoods, which could cost 6 times more. (Source: https://sites.google.com/site/thehumanitiesempanadas/geography-of-food/kelongs-soon-to-be-an-image-of-the-past)
Nibong palm at Singapore Botanic Gardens, Swan Lake or something
Near the border with Cambodia, Thailand posted their soldiers to patrol the last tracts of old-growth Rosewood trees in nature reserves and post guards to watch over their largest remaining Rosewood tree. (Source: https://eia-international.org/corruption-bloodshed-and-death-the-curse-of-rosewood)
China consumes most of these Rosewood, as there seemed to be a desire among the nouveau-rich to collect such antiques, or rather antique reproductions to show off their wealth. The Rosewood utilised was not only one species - Dalbergia cochinchinensis or Siamese Rosewood pilfered from their southern neighbours - but according to the National Rosewood Standard of China, 33 species in total are considered as Rosewood. One of those species is, surprise again, Pterocarpus indicus or Angsana, a relatively fast-growing tree commonly planted in the Philippines (National tree of Philippines), Malaysia, Singapore, and some say Indonesia. A fungal disease epidemic by fusarium wilt impacted the Angsana population in Singapore in the 1980s and almost wiped them out.
In the early 1990s, the National Parks Board sourced Angsana seeds from the region, grown them, and identified those resistant to the fusarium wilt. Some fruits of their research are exemplified in five fungal wilt-resistant Angsana trees that were nurtured in Bidadari and transplanted to Esplanade Park one year ago. But sometimes, there is still a small number of trees that succumb to the disease.
In conclusion, Angsana is a potential candidate for a Rosewood plantation, as a specimen of 40cm diameter could be grown within 20 years (using the ones in Esplanade as an example), as compared to 40 to 50 years for Siamese or Malagasy Rosewood of 20 cm in diameter.
A mature roadside Angsana tree
Honourable mentions:
- African Mahogany Khaya senegalensis
- Kasai Pometia pinnata
- Wattle Black Acacia mangium
