China, Japan value red sanders most

Red sanders has a wide variety of uses, from carving beautiful traditional musical instruments and grandiose furniture used as status symbols out of the tree’s heartwood, to using it for preparation of traditional medicines and edible dyes.

However, all these uses of red sanders are found mainly in China and Japan.

According to sources, South Korea is said to be an emerging market. When it comes to India, red sanders find very little use, mostly as medicines in ayurveda and siddha systems.

An AP forest department official said, “Red sanders smuggled out of the country to Japan has been in use for making musical instru- ments like Shamisen, Koto and Erhu over many years. Now China has overtaken Japan as the largest user of red sanders. The Chinese associate red sanders furniture with royalty. A single chair made of red sanders costs as much as `10 lakh. Also, the furniture does not use any other material like adhesives.” “The Chinese are very good in differentiating between red sanders grown in natural forests and that grown on patta land. So, the demand will always remain high for red sanders from Seshachalam even if the trees are grown on patta lands for commercial purposes,” he said.

According to a pharmacognosy report on red sanders by the Botanical Survey of India, “The wood paste is externally applied to cure skin inflammation, headache, fever, scorpion sting, skin diseases and to strengthen eyesight. It has remarkable property of healing pimples, scars, boils, wounds, burn marks, black spots, eczema etc.”