Sandalwood (Santalum spicatum) is a tree native to Western Australia. It is a rapidly depleting timber commodity with an ever-increasing global market.
Sandalwood (Santalum spicatum) is a tree native to Western Australia. It is a rapidly depleting timber commodity with an ever-increasing global market.
Ron Mulder is proprietor of New Forest WA Pty Ltd, a business started in 1995 specialising in the propagation and supply of Western Australian sandalwood trees as a combatant to the growing problems of salinity in rural Western Australia. Research on the species and the successful establishment of thousands of sandalwood trees put New Forest in an ideal position to capitalise on the deregulation of commercial farming of sandalwood in the mid 1990’s. Ron Mulder continues research and experimentation in sandalwood establishment, including the development of a sandalwood seed orchard and tree breeding program involving approximately 7000 sandalwood trees on his own property.
Through New Forest, Ron has established a number of small scale sandalwood plantations on farmers’ properties throughout the Wheatbelt area of Western Australia. Many of these sites were for revegetation and land care projects as opposed to investment plantations. Ron continues to hold close relationships with various land care groups within the Wheatbelt. He attends regular meetings and gives presentations to a number of landcare and forestry groups in Western Australia. In 2002 Ron also completed the Australian Master Tree Growers programme.
In 2000 Ron was responsible for the project management and establishment of a 20 hectare sandalwood plantation in York. At the time of establishment that plantation was the largest irrigated sandalwood (spicatum) plantation in Australia. Ron has been responsible for the project management and establishment of 10 commercial sandalwood plantations in Western Australia and has successfully established over 1200 hectares of plantations since 2001.
Prior to his involvement in forestry, Ron owned and operated an importing / exporting company responsible for the distribution of industrial gypsum and construction materials for United States Gypsum Company (USG) in Western Australia and Asia. His involvement in this company has spanned 16 years and he still holds a financial interest in its operations today.
Ron is a Director of Wisper Forestry Services.
Keith Drage graduated in Chemistry from University College, London in 1986. He then joined what is now ICAP Plc, the world’s largest money broking company, in their currency options division.
During a career of 14 years with the company, Keith worked initially as a broker in London before opening currency option divisions in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney in the late 1980s. After managing the London division from 1991 – 1998 he then moved to New York where he managed the product globally, until leaving ICAP in June 2000.
Keith has experience in client liaison, company management, management accounting, finance and sales. Since immigrating to Australia in November 2000, Keith has been involved with the development and establishment of twelve existing commercial Western Australian sandalwood plantations. Keith is a Director of Wisper Forestry Services.
