The Incense Tree in Hong Kong – a vanishing species

Hugh Farmer: For over two thousand years the Chinese have used incense in religious ceremonies, to venerate ancestors, in traditional medicine and in daily life. The two  most important ingredients in Chinese incense are agarwood and sandalwood. In what was to become colonial Hong Kong local producers brought in agarwood from across southern China as far back as the Song dynasty (960-1279) including the area later known as the New Territories.

This SCMP  article says that the high value of incense trees is resulting in them being cut down in substantial numbers in Hong Kong and the timber taken across the border into China.

This article was first posted on 11th March 2014.

See:

• SCMP article Making scents : saviours of the incense tree
• Possible origins of the name Hong Kong including Incense Fragrant Harbour

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/History_of_Hong_Kong/Introduction

Related Indhhk articles:

1. Incense tree plantation in Hong Kong
2. A water powered tilt-hammer incense mill
3. A Joss-stick Mill in Tsuen Wan
4. Tsuen Wan Water mill
5. The origins of the name Hong Kong – the export of incense
6. Lamma Island incense timber theft arrests
7. Wi-Fi ‘Guard’ device to protect incense tree – SCMP article