Page 97 - SMUGGLING IN INDIA REPORT FOR 2020-2021

CHAPTER 4: COMBATING WILDLIFE SMUGGLING AND TRANSBORDER ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES 51
Red Sanders
Pterocarpus santalinus L. f. (Family: Fabaceae) is commonly known as Red Sanders, Red Sandalwood, Ruby wood or Saunders wood in English. Other Indian vernacular names are Rakta Chandana, Harichandana (Sanskrit) Lalchandan (Hindi), Sivappu Chandanam, Sensandanam (Tamil), Yerra Chandanamu, Agaru Gandhamu, Rakta Gandhamu (Telugu), Agaru, Rakta Chandana, Kempu Gandha (Kannada), Patrangam, Rak.ta Chandanam, Tillaparni ( Malayalam), Lal Chandan, Rokto Chandan (Bengali), Lohoti Chondono, Rokto Chandano (Oriya) Tambada Chandana (Marathi), Chandan lal (Punjabi) Ratanjali (Gujarati).
It takes 50-60 years for a tree of polesize(30cm)toreach70cm girth which is harvestable girth in thenaturalforests.Itisestimated that at least 10-12 years are required for trees to move from one girth class (10 cm class intervals)tonextgirthclass.The wood of most of Red Sanders trees has a normal grain, however, there is also a rare variant with a ‘wavy’ grain which fetches higher prices in international markets. The high demand and price for
heartwood in the international market is the apparently the main cause for illegal felling and smuggling. The demand for red sanders exists in countries like China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Myanmar where they are used for furniture, dyes, making musical instruments as well as medicinal purposes.
Red Sanders (RS) (Pterocarpus santalinus) or Red Sandalwood is an endangered species found only in south India, especially in Andhra Pradesh and at the borders of Andhra Pradesh adjacent to the states of Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Red Sanders is an endemic species of Rayalaseema region consisting of Kadapa, Kurnool and Chittoor districts and parts of Nellore District.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an international organization for nature conservation, has in 2018, reclassified red sanders (Pterocarpus santalinus) as ‘near threatened’ from the earlier ‘endangered’. Red Sanders is the only species of Pterocarpus that has been listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).