The end of the line? Sandalwood surveying on Bon Bon Reserve

For National Tree Day, Richard McLellan takes us into the South Australian outback for a sandalwood survey, exploring the significance of the species and its unfortunate plight.

Bon Bon Station Reserve, in Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara Country, just south of Coober Pedy, is right on the northern, outer edge of the range of Australian Sandalwood (Santalum spicatum). Records indicated that there were “one or two trees” scattered “here and there” around the property, so a baseline survey was instigated to better document the number, age, and condition of the sandalwood plants on the property.

I was joined in the survey by long-time Bush Heritage Australia volunteers Garry McDonald and Anne Williams who, within mere nanoseconds of finding their first sandalwood tree, had the gnarly-but-gorgeously-aromatic tree species firmly under their skin. 

One of the things that struck us most in the week of searching for sandalwood on Bon Bon was a paragraph we found in a book about the history of the surrounding region. It read:

“During the last half of the decade, progress around the stations had slowed considerably with the bulk of the rebuilding era of the pastoral sector completed. This of course, had been an enormous boost to the economy of the district, particularly during what had been the darkest years of the Great Depression. Even so, few workers were without employment of some description… (including) the “pulling” of sandalwood on nearby properties. ... even as late as 1940, several old identities camped on the outskirts of the town working steadily at removing bark from gathered timber before loading it on to railway trucks in preparation for the long journey to the Asian markets.” (See picture below. Source: Monroe, R. J (1997), Kingoonya: A Way of Life. The history of the Kingoonya township and district.)

What shocked/dismayed me most about this passage was that, even here – virtually “at the end of the line” on the very northern fringes of its scattered and precarious existence across southern and western Australia – this iconic Australian species was ‘hunted down and killed’, without any consideration for its cultural and ecological importance. 

Unfortunately, we didn’t find too many, but enough to brighten up the day of Bush Heritage ecologist, Pat Taggart and Healthy Landscape Manager, Graeme Finlayson who initiated the survey. Most of the ‘stands’ of sandalwood only had one or two very old trees (more than 100-200 years old) in relatively poor health. 

This was consistent with the results of a survey I conducted in the Western Australian rangelands in 2021: The Great Sandalwood Transect. However, providing a glimmer of hope for the species’ future, we found a few younger trees – mostly (unfortunately) growing directly under parent trees where they are almost certain to perish. 

We were also heartened by the minimal evidence of grazing impact on the plants that we found, no doubt a tangible benefit of the sustainable conservation management being implemented on the reserve. The small number of plants on the property is almost certainly a sad legacy of the unsustainable harvest that happened here, and across South Australia 80-100 years ago.  

But it is also consistent with what I and other researchers have found throughout the entire sandalwood range – where the species is threatened by unsustainable legal harvesting (which sadly is still occurring in Western Australia), illegal harvesting, loss of seed dispersers like Burrowing Bettongs, grazing (by kangaroos, rabbits, goats, sheep, cattle, camels, horses, donkeys, fire, drought, and climate change. It is listed globally on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as a ‘Vulnerable’ species.

We spent an exciting and uplifting final day planting sandalwood seed with reserve managers, Wayne and Karen Lawrence. Slowly disappearing from the wild in the rangelands, sandalwood will likely only persist into the future across much of its former range if it is pro-actively cared for by land managers, and replaced in carefully planned re-seeding, revegetation, and restoration programs.

Bush Heritage Australia is part of the solution. They want to make sure that it isn’t “the end of the line” for sandalwood. Not on their watch.

Listen to The Sandalwood Tree episode on Big Sky Country below or wherever you get your podcasts.