Overview
This project aims to improve timber supply and income for Papua New Guinea and Cape York Peninsula (PNG and CYP) landholders through development of smallholder planted forests by increasing germplasm supply and refining working models for viable smallholder teak and indigenous sandalwood production.
In many areas of PNG, smallholders lack adequate timber resources (PNGFA 2020) and commercial opportunities for secure livelihoods. This project will address both issues through developing smallholder-owned, commercial timber. Two high-value species, teak (Tectona grandis L. f., a hardwood exotic to PNG) and the rare native sandalwood (Santalum macgregorii F. Muell.) are the study species. These species are Government of PNG priorities for research and development (Sabuin 2019). Teak shows exceptional growth in PNG, producing high-quality timber with a strong international market.
A key opportunity for sandalwood lies in niche marketing of unique oil properties and organic local production. This project will contribute to the conservation of the genome, collecting and banking germplasm, screening the oils and propagating best-quality clones before the opportunity to do so is lost.