One of Australia's oldest export industries, sandalwood harvesting, has long happened in the shadows, but this award-winning First Nations brand is changing that with the 'ultimate nature-based economy'.
Clinton Farmer's father walked out of the desert in the 1950s. He stepped beyond his homelands and set eyes on colonial Australia for the first time.It harvests sandalwood in the Gibson Desert and exports to the global luxury perfume marketWARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of people who have died.
Behind the kitchen is fuel drums, car bodies and machines the desert devours — an area Mr Farmer affectionately calls "the Mungilli Industrial Park".The outstation was built in the early 1980s by Muntiljarra people and Mr Farmer has been coming here since he was a child."He wanted to come back on country and get our families away from the social problems, [because] town life was destroying our people.The Mungilli Outstation on Muntiljarra land on the Gunbarrel Highway.
At camp the wood is cleaned, debarked and prepared for transport, then it begins its long journey by road train to be processed. Clinton Farmer, along with his cousin Darren Farmer, are founders and directors in the company along with Keith Drage and Ron Mulder, who have a long engagement in the industry."The renewable resource could marry up with the old traditional wildwood that's out there in the desert."
"Currently, the Dutjahn Custodians are the only Aboriginal or Indigenous Business involved in the sandalwood industry that are actually actively out there harvesting and seeing their product all the way through to the value-added process," he said.Clinton Farmer and Ron Mulder with a vial of sandalwood oil, processed at a Kalgoorlie distillery.
Ms DeLeary said Dutjahn not only harvested in a sustainable way, but the company had a philanthropic arm which reinvested profits in a small community near Wiluna called Kutkabubba.
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