Untraced Palo Santo — the crisis of Peru and Ecuador

Les plantes-maîtresses, approchées par dévotion — ce qu'elles enseignent quand on les laisse être ce qu'elles sont.

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Les plantes-maîtresses, approchées par dévotion — ce qu'elles enseignent quand on les laisse être ce qu'elles sont.

— Les plantes-maîtresses, approchées par dévotion — ce qu'elles enseignent quand on les laisse être ce qu'elles sont.

Why we refuse the untraced — TL;DR

INFUSE refuses any untraced Palo Santo. Bursera graveolens has been listed under CITES Appendix II since 2016. Opaque commercial chains still dominate much of the market, with two unacceptable consequences: living trees felled instead of dead wood gathered, and the appropriation of Quechua-Cañari practices without consent.

1. The CITES Appendix II rule (since 2016 for the Peruvian populations). All legal international trade in Bursera graveolens must carry CITES permits. A majority of the Palo Santo sold on the global market (Amazon, Etsy, new-age shops) has no such permits, or has forged them.
2. Dead wood vs living tree. The traditional Quechua-Cañari rule is clear: you wait for the tree to die naturally, and then you wait another 4 to 10 years for the wood to 'cure' (for the aromatic resin to crystallise within the fibres). The commercial boom has generated such pressure that living trees are felled illegally and sold as 'dead wood'.
3. Pressure on the Ecuadorian and Peruvian tropical dry ecosystem. The forests of Bursera graveolens (bosque seco) are among the most threatened ecosystems in South America — less than 5% of their original extent preserved. Extensive ranching, agriculture and urbanisation have already decimated these forests. The Palo Santo trade adds to this existential pressure.
4. Confusion between Bursera graveolens and other Bursera. Several sister species (Bursera tomentosa, B. simaruba) are sometimes sold under the name 'Palo Santo' without the same aromatic richness or the same tradition of use. The buyer purchases blind.

The name as a signature

Palo Santo means, literally, 'holy wood' in Spanish. The name appears in the colonial chronicles of the seventeenth century to designate several aromatic woods of South America — at first the name was not exclusive to Bursera graveolens, and several European sources confused different species.

The qualifier 'holy' is not marketing: it comes from the ceremonial use observed by the Spanish missionaries from their first contact with the Andean peoples. The smoke of the wood was used in contexts the missionaries read as 'religious' — hence the linguistic sanctification.

The scientific term graveolens means 'strong-smelling' in Latin (gravis = heavy, olens = smelling). The German botanist Carl Sigismund Kunth, who described the species in 1825 in the wake of the Humboldt-Bonpland expedition, chose the name to underline the aromatic power of the wood.

The commercial use of the term 'Palo Santo' gradually spread to different species — Bulnesia sarmientoi in particular (Paraguayan Palo Santo, wholly different botanically and chemically), often sold online under the same name. This lexical confusion is one of the levers of commercial fraud.

The plant as a person

Bursera graveolens lives in the bosque seco tropical — the tropical dry forest, one of the rarest and most threatened ecosystems in South America. The Ecuadorian and Peruvian bosque seco is marked by a very long dry season (8-10 months) and a short but intense rainy season. Bursera graveolens is one of the dominant trees of this extreme ecosystem.

The living tree does not carry the aroma of commercial Palo Santo. The aromatic resin develops and crystallises gradually after the natural death of the tree, over 4 to 10 years during which the dead wood remains on the forest floor. It is during this slow decomposition that the terpene compounds concentrate in the heart of the wood.

This teaching of death as preparation is exactly what the Andean traditions honour. The living tree has not yet reached its role as medicine. It is the fallen tree, traversed by the dry and wet seasons, that becomes Palo Santo. Modern commerce, in felling the living tree to 'dry it artificially' over a few months, produces an object that resembles Palo Santo but is no longer the medicine.

Bursera graveolens also holds an ecological role: its flowers feed a diversity of pollinators, its fruits are eaten by migratory birds (Setophaga petechia in particular), its shaded canopy shelters an understorey of endemic plants. To fell the living trees destroys this whole ecological web.

The history — from the Andean curandero to the global boutique

The ceremonial uses of Palo Santo in the Andes are old. The Quechua, Cañari and Saraguro curanderos use it in several frames: the opening of a ceremony (limpia, mesa), the cleansing of a place of care, the accompaniment of prayers, the fumigation of ritual objects (crystals, feathers, statuettes).

The modern ethnobotanical documentation (Carlos Manuel Pacheco — Plantas sagradas del Ecuador, 2006; José Salas Lassen — Etnobotánica medicinal Cañari, 2014) shows the use to be woven into a complex cosmology: Palo Santo is not a product, it is a participant in the curandero's mesa, alongside the huayruros (red seeds), the Andean quartz crystals, the agua de florida (perfumed floral water).

The Western commercial turn falls around the years 2000-2010. The first driver was the spread of yoga and the wellness movement in the United States, followed by its European spread. The Instagram boom of 2015-2020 multiplied demand by an estimated factor of 5 to 15.

In 2016, the listing of Bursera graveolens under CITES Appendix II (at Peru's request) reflected official alarm at the rise in illegal extraction. Appendix II allows trade on condition of permits and quotas — but in practice, traceability remains extremely weak on the online markets.

Ecuador, the world's main exporter of Palo Santo in the 2010-2020 years, set national harvest standards in 2018 (the MAATE resolution) requiring naturally fallen dead wood. Enforcement remains difficult, however: the country has few forest rangers for the areas concerned, and economic pressure on the rural communities drives illegal felling.

The crisis — figures, dates, sources

Precise scientific data remain fragmentary (Bursera graveolens has not been studied enough), but several signals converge.

• CITES Appendix II listing in 2016 (Peruvian populations, at the request of the Peruvian government) — an official signal of the threat of overexploitation.
• Aguirre, Z. & Kvist, L. P. (Lyonia, 2005) already estimated at that time that less than 5% of the original Ecuadorian bosque seco remained — before the commercial Palo Santo boom.
• The Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment (MAATE) documented in 2019 several hundred cases of illegal felling of living Bursera graveolens in the provinces of Manabí, Loja, Pichincha.
• Estimated global trade: several hundred tonnes a year, mostly to the USA, the EU, Japan, Australia. The share of this trade that genuinely meets the CITES standards and the Ecuadorian/Peruvian standards is below 30% according to independent estimates (Centro Ecuatoriano de Derecho Ambiental, 2021).
• The Cañari communities of Saraguro (southern Ecuador) published several declarations between 2019 and 2023 calling for the recognition of their traditional authority over the management of the Palo Santo forests, and for an end to the non-consultative trade.
• Bulnesia sarmientoi (Paraguayan Palo Santo, a different species sometimes fraudulently substituted) was listed under CITES Appendix II as early as 2010 for similar reasons — frequent commercial confusion between the two.

The 'plantation-grown Palo Santo' trade, sometimes presented as an ethical solution, is in fact very limited: Bursera graveolens takes 20 to 30 years to reach mature size, and the aromatic quality requires natural death followed by 4-10 years of drying in situ. The 'plantations' that claim to supply an equivalent Palo Santo within a few years produce an aromatically impoverished wood.

Why ethical tracing is non-negotiable

INFUSE does not close the door on Palo Santo if a traced chain exists. Here are the minimum criteria we require to consider a sourcing acceptable.

1. A verified CITES Appendix II permit (a permit number verifiable with the national CITES authorities of Ecuador or Peru).
2. A community certificate of origin — the Quechua, Cañari or Saraguro community of the harvest area must have given its explicit consent and must receive a fair share of the price.
3. A guaranteed 'naturally dead wood' traceability — estimated date of fall, documented duration of drying in situ, no living felling.
4. Independent audit possible — the chain must be open to inspection by a third party (for instance the NGO Rainforest Alliance, the Forest Stewardship Council, or a local audit).
5. Transparency of the price paid to the community — the gap between the price paid to the producer and the final sale price must be documented.

To this day (May 2026), INFUSE has not identified a Palo Santo supplier meeting these five criteria in a verified way. As long as that chain does not exist, we do not sell it.

Sourced alternatives we offer

For ritual fumigation, several living traditions offer alternatives without major ecological pressure.

• Mexican copal (Bursera bipinnata, Bursera jorullensis) — a cousin of B. graveolens, of Maya and Nahua lineage, with traced sourcing possible from Mexican communities. Verify the specific traceability.
• True incense (Boswellia sacra of the Omani Dhofar, Boswellia carterii of Somalia) — the millennia-old fumigation of the South Semites, living lineages, traced sourcing difficult but possible.
• Imphepho (Helichrysum odoratissimum) — South African sangoma fumigation, ethical partners identified (Khanyisa Healing Garden).
• European Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) — the fumigation of thresholds in Europe, a freely available plant.
• Alpine cedar (Juniperus communis) — Alpine, Scandinavian, Mongolian fumigation. A freely available plant.

None replaces Palo Santo. None tries to. Each is within its own lineage, its own history.

Nuggets & legends

The Ecuadorian bosque seco shelters several endemic species co-evolved with Bursera graveolens — the Pacific parrotlet (Forpus coelestis), the Tumbes tyrant (Tumbezia salvini), several species of Stenocercus lizards. To destroy the living trees by commercial felling threatens this whole company of animals.

Carl Sigismund Kunth (1788-1850), the German botanist who officially described Bursera graveolens in 1825, was part of the scientific team that accompanied Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland on their South American expedition (1799-1804). Palo Santo thus entered European botany at the start of the nineteenth century, but stayed commercially marginal for 180 years.

The Quechua curanderos of Loja use Palo Santo in combination with other elements on their ritual mesa: huayruros (red and black seeds of Ormosia coccinea), Andean quartz crystals (cuarzo), feathers of high-Andean birds (condor, falcon), agua de florida (perfumed floral water prepared by hand). Palo Santo on its own, taken out of this mesa, loses half its meaning.

The Ecuadorian province of Loja, historic capital of Palo Santo production, is also known for its exceptional botanical biodiversity. The Botanical Garden of Loja (Universidad Nacional de Loja) keeps a living collection there of more than 1,500 Andean species — including several Bursera. To visit this garden is a respectful act; to buy a Palo Santo bundle on Etsy is not.

The Ecuadorian-Peruvian bosque seco ecosystem has been listed as a 'biodiversity hotspot' by Conservation International since 2005. This international recognition should have slowed the extractive trade. In practice, the Palo Santo boom came after this recognition — proof of the gap between science and the market.

The term curandero (from curar = to care for, in Spanish) covers a diversity of very different Andean practitioners — the Shipibo curanderos de chacapas of the Amazon do not have the same frame as the Quechua Andean curanderos, who do not have the same frame as the Aymara Bolivian yatiris. Palo Santo appears in these different frames with different functions — to grasp these nuances comes before any purchase.

The 2018 Ecuadorian MAATE resolution on Palo Santo sets out not only the harvest rules but also a system of community plantations to regenerate the bosque seco. Several NGOs (Naturaleza & Cultura, Fundación Jocotoco) accompany this work — to support these NGOs financially is a concrete avenue of action, beyond the simple refusal to buy.

Bulnesia sarmientoi (Paraguayan Palo Santo, frequently confused) has an even more dramatic history: its trade accelerated the deforestation of the Paraguayan Gran Chaco, one of the most deforested ecosystems in the world (with deforestation rates among the highest globally in the 2010s). The CITES listing in 2010 partly slowed it, but the pressure continues.

The argument that 'Palo Santo harms my spiritual health if I do not use it', sometimes invoked by Western practitioners who have grown dependent on it, is a rationalisation. No traditional Quechua cosmology supports this idea. 'Spiritual dependence' on Palo Santo is a strictly contemporary Western phenomenon, produced by wellness marketing.

Sources — main

• CITES — Bursera graveolens, Appendix II listing 2016 (cites.org).
• Aguirre, Z. & Kvist, L. P. — Floristic composition and conservation status of the dry forests in Ecuador. Lyonia, 8(2), 2005.
• Aguirre, Z. — Bosques secos del Ecuador. Universidad Nacional de Loja, 2012.
• Pacheco, C. M. — Plantas sagradas del Ecuador. Editorial Abya-Yala, Quito, 2006.
• Salas Lassen, J. — Etnobotánica medicinal Cañari. Universidad de Cuenca, 2014.
• Rütt, M. — Bursera graveolens: Ecology and Use in the Tropical Dry Forest. Journal of Ethnobiology, 2018.
• Ministerio del Ambiente, Agua y Transición Ecológica (MAATE) Ecuador — Resolución sobre el aprovechamiento de Bursera graveolens, 2018.
• Centro Ecuatoriano de Derecho Ambiental (CEDA) — Informe sobre el comercio de Palo Santo, 2021.
• Conservation International — Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena Biodiversity Hotspot documentation, 2005-2023.
• Andrade, S. — Médecines traditionnelles andines. Éditions Indigo, 2019.
• Federación de Comunidades Cañari de Saraguro — Comunicados oficiales 2019-2023.
• Naturaleza & Cultura International — Regeneration projects for the Ecuadorian bosque seco (naturalezaycultura.org).

Sources — secondary

• Humboldt, A. von & Bonpland, A. — Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America (1799-1804).
• Davis, W. — One River. Simon & Schuster, 1996 — the relevant South American chapters.
• Schultes, R. E. & Raffauf, R. F. — The Healing Forest: Medicinal and Toxic Plants of the Northwest Amazonia. Dioscorides Press, 1990.
• Fundación Jocotoco — Conservation programmes for the Ecuadorian bosque seco.
• Rainforest Alliance — Forest traceability standards applicable to the Burseraceae.
• IUCN Red List — Conservation statuses of the Bursera spp.
• Independent reporting on the global Palo Santo market (Le Monde, El Comercio, BBC Mundo, 2018-2024).
• Forest Stewardship Council — Criteria applicable to tropical aromatic woods.