Vietnam and the oud trade

While the earliest records of the oud trade mention trees originating in India, from the very first centuries CE agarwood was exported from other parts of its natural range, including Vietnam. From the 4th century onward, China imported Vietnamese oud, and Vietnamese emperors presented agarwood as tribute to Chinese emperors throughout the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE). In accounts written at the end of the 13th century, Marco Polo relates that agarwood was then found in abundance in Indonesia and in southern Vietnam. Today, Vietnam is among the world’s leading producers of agarwood. Situated at the heart of the range of producing species, Aquilaria populations are found mainly along the southern forested coasts and along the border with Cambodia.

Throughout the feudal era, agarwood was used exclusively by royal families who held a monopoly over its trade, but the use of oud gradually spread to the broader population. Under the Nguyễn dynasty, reigning from 1802 to 1945, the cultural presence of oud expanded. The kings sought to extend the oud trade with foreign partners while protecting the resource. Harvesting was therefore authorized only once a year and only from mature trees.

Agarwood is now deeply rooted in Vietnamese popular culture. Lê Quý Đôn-philosopher, poet, and encyclopedist, regarded as the greatest scholar of his time-wrote in the 18th century that agarwood represents “the union of the spirits of heaven and earth,” and oud has been celebrated for centuries in Vietnamese poetry. Used in traditional medicine to treat many ailments, oud in the form of incense sticks is burned at numerous ritual ceremonies that mark life in Vietnam-full-moon rites, weddings, and funerals. Burned on household altars, the scent of oud connects families to their ancestors and to the deities. In Vietnam there is an ancestral, traditional knowledge of cultivating oud that is passed down from generation to generation and carefully safeguarded by families today.

The agarwood trade expanded rapidly from the early 1970s, with the involvement of government agencies. Official trade data report strong growth in agarwood exports, rising from 5 tonnes in the early 1970s to 50 tonnes by the mid-1980s. In 1986, the launch of Đổi Mới transformed the country from a socialist economy to a so-called “socialist market economy,” opening it to foreign investment and encouraging international trade. Agarwood was then exploited widely and without adequate safeguards. In 1992, the Vietnamese government declared Aquilaria crassna to be a wild species threatened with extinction and subject to overexploitation.

Over the past twenty years, the cultivation of producing species has expanded greatly in Vietnam-as in most range countries-in order to meet demand. Yet secrecy still surrounds production methods, perpetuating the opacity around this material and making it difficult to ensure that plantations truly meet ecological norms and requirements.