He may not be able to resuscitate Hong Kong’s long dead incense trade, but entrepreneur Chan Koon-wing is at least hoping to save the tree that gave the city its name centuries ago.
Chan returned to the city-state from his adopted home in Northern Ireland four years ago to revive his late grandfather’s incense tree plantation in the northern village of Shing Ping, near the border with mainland China.
“If I don’t start growing incense trees again, I fear we’ll lose the species because of exploitation by illegal loggers,” Chan told reporters, standing on the edge of his vast and faintly aromatic plantation.
Southern China’s native incense trees once provided the raw material for incense sticks that were exported from Hong Kong — the city-state’s name means “fragrant harbor” — to ports as far afield as the Arabian peninsula.
Local experts say Hong Kong’s incense trade thrived for hundreds of years, especially in the Song Dynasty around the turn of the first millennium and in the later Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
Yet as the island in the Pearl River Delta transformed itself into a powerhouse of business and finance in the 1980s, the trees that were once a pillar of the local economy were replaced by offices and apartment blocks.
Chan’s grandfather’s farm is now the only plantation left in Hong Kong.
Chan’s farm produces a local species called Aquilaria sinensis, the native Chinese member of the family commonly known as agarwood which is found throughout Asia.
Its most valuable incense and fragrant oils are produced by wounding the trunk and exposing the wood to fungal infection, which the tree fights by producing a dark resin. Burning wood steeped in this resin produces the aroma.
Ancient Asian texts abound in references to the religious and cultural uses of agarwood, including the oldest Sanskrit literature of Hinduism dating back thousands of years.
Known in China as chen xiang (沈香) the sap is prized in traditional Chinese medicine as a treatment for illnesses ranging from asthma to cancer.
The highest quality resin can fetch more than HK$10,000 (US$1,300) a gram, leading to the indiscriminate felling of wild trees by poachers.
“Some people said incense trees are more expensive than gold because of their medicinal properties,” Conservancy Association senior campaign manager Peter Li said.
The species is listed alongside Great White sharks and US black bears under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), meaning its trade should be restricted.
Conservationists say that Hong Kong has a better record of protecting its incense trees than mainland China, where habitat destruction and illegal logging have taken a greater toll.
“There has been an increase in the number of reports of damage on mature incense trees,” Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said in a statement to foreign media.
The department has found the species in 86 out of 118 sites surveyed around Hong Kong since 2003, but there are no figures showing at what rate the trees’ numbers are declining.
Some of the surviving trees bear signs of wounding, where poachers have slashed the trunks to induce resin production.
“Owing to the high price of chen xiang in the market, illegal harvesting of incense trees was detected in southern China including Hong Kong,” the department said.
Chan said he hoped more farmers would join him in reviving Hong Kong’s legal incense production.
“I hope to see more people planting the incense trees so Hong Kong can restore its reputation as a fragrant harbor,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in