Nature & Heritage · Long read · 12 min read

The Sandalwood Forest of Marayoor

In a dry valley north of Munnar grows Kerala's only natural sandalwood forest: tens of thousands of trees of the world's most precious fragrant wood. Its ecology, its history of smuggling and protection, its people, and the threats it faces today.

By GK Global, Adimali, Munnar · Trails & Tales by GK

The road from Munnar to Marayoor drops down through the tea and the forest into a different world: a warm, dry valley of rocky hills, scrub and sugarcane. Along the roadside, behind fences and watchtowers, stand groves of slender trees with small, leathery leaves and dark, rough bark. They do not look remarkable. But these are sandalwood trees, and the forest around Marayoor is the only natural sandalwood forest in Kerala, and one of the finest in the world.

A tree like no other

Indian sandalwood is a small to medium-sized evergreen tree, usually 6 to 12 m tall. What makes it special lies inside: as the tree matures, usually over 15 to 30 years or more, the central heartwood becomes rich in a fragrant oil, whose main components are compounds called santalols. The pale outer sapwood has little scent. The heartwood and the oil distilled from it have been treasured in India for thousands of years, for perfume, incense, medicine, carving and religious ritual. Sandalwood paste (chandanam) is applied to the forehead in worship across Kerala and India.

Sandalwood is a hemiparasite. Its green leaves make their own food by photosynthesis, but its roots form special connections, called haustoria, with the roots of other plants around it, from which it draws water and minerals. A young sandalwood tree cannot thrive without suitable host plants nearby. This is one reason why sandalwood is hard to grow in plantations, and why natural sandalwood forests, with their mix of shrubs and trees, are so valuable.

Sandalwood fruits are small, purple-black berries, eaten by birds such as bulbuls, which spread the seeds through the forest. In Marayoor, the trees regenerate naturally from seed, and the forest department also raises and plants seedlings.

Why Marayoor?

Sandalwood grows best in dry, sunny places with well-drained, rocky soils and moderate rainfall. The Marayoor valley, lying in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats, has exactly these conditions: it receives far less rain than the hills of Munnar, just a few kilometres away, and its hillsides are covered with dry deciduous forest and scrub. Marayoor sandalwood is renowned for its high oil content: according to forest officials, Marayoor heartwood yields considerably more oil than sandalwood from many other regions. With sandalwood populations in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu devastated by disease and smuggling, Marayoor is now one of the most important natural sandalwood areas in India.

History: royal wood, smugglers and guards

Sandalwood has long been treated as a royal tree in South India: in the old kingdom of Mysore, it was declared the property of the state, even when it grew on private land. In Kerala today, the trade in sandalwood is still controlled by the government: trees on private land may not be cut without permission, and all sandalwood is sold through the forest department.

Because its wood is so valuable, sandalwood has attracted smugglers for centuries. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, as sandalwood elsewhere ran out, illegal felling in Marayoor soared. According to a report by a Supreme Court committee, the number of trees illegally felled rose from 37 in 1997 to more than 1,800 in 2003, and the forest lost thousands of trees in 2004 and 2005. Illegal sandalwood oil factories elsewhere in Kerala fed on the stolen wood.

The response transformed Marayoor. In 2005 the area became a separate forest division. The forests were fenced, watchtowers and camps built, and patrols mounted day and night. Crucially, people from the tribal settlements around the forest, including the Muthuvan and Hill Pulaya communities, were employed as watchers and organised into eco-development committees, giving them a direct stake in protecting the trees. Thefts fell dramatically: by 2020, only 13 trees were reported stolen.

The sandalwood depot and auctions

All sandalwood from the Marayoor forest, together with wood collected from fallen and dead trees and from private land, is brought to the government sandalwood depot at Marayoor, a heavily guarded compound with storage for hundreds of tonnes. There the wood is cleaned, graded into about 15 classes according to its size and quality, and sold at public e-auctions, usually held twice a year.

The auctions bring in large sums. In September 2023, for example, an auction of Marayoor sandalwood raised more than ₹37 crore, and a single tree from private land fetched about ₹1.25 crore. The largest buyer is usually Karnataka Soaps and Detergents, the maker of Mysore Sandal soap. Temples, Ayurvedic medicine makers and handicraft businesses also buy. Since 2012, owners of sandalwood trees on private land receive most of the sale price of their trees, an incentive for farmers to protect and plant sandalwood.

Threats: spike disease and more

The greatest threat to the Marayoor forest today is sandalwood spike disease, caused by tiny bacteria-like organisms called phytoplasmas, spread from tree to tree by sap-sucking insects. Infected trees produce bunches of tiny, stiff leaves, like spikes, and die within a few years. There is no cure. The disease devastated sandalwood in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu during the twentieth century, and has affected Marayoor for decades; in 2022, the Kerala government announced that about 2,000 infected trees would be cut to stop its spread. Researchers continue to study the disease and how to control its insect carriers.

Other threats include fire, grazing, the spread of invasive weeds such as lantana, which compete with sandalwood seedlings, and pressure to release forest land for other uses. Smuggling has been greatly reduced but remains a risk while the wood stays so valuable.

The forest beyond the sandalwood

The sandalwood forests of Marayoor are part of a larger landscape that includes Anamudi Shola National Park, the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary and the forests of the Anamalai hills. Elephants, gaur, sambar, spotted deer, leopards, sloth bears and grizzled giant squirrels live in or pass through the area. The same valley holds hundreds of Iron Age dolmens and prehistoric rock paintings, and its farmers make the famous Marayoor jaggery.