Consumers and celebrities around the world covet it for its warm, earthy and musky scent. But Australian sandalwood’s popularity has come at more than just a hefty cost to the wallet, with some scientists warning the species is at risk of extinction in the wild… In Western Australia, the primary commercial harvest operator is the Forest Products Commission, which manages the harvest of up to 2,500 tonnes of wild Australian sandalwood each year. Australian sandalwood is also harvested in plantations, but the warnings from conservationists are focused on trees found in the wild and long-standing concerns that there is insufficient natural regeneration of the species… “The evidence is we have less sandalwood in the wild than probably ever in its evolutionary history,” Prof. Kingsley Dixon said.