Cambodia's agarwood industry rests on a single species, Aquilaria crassna, the same species that dominates Vietnamese and Laotian production covered elsewhere in this hub. Cambodia's agarwood history is closely tied to the Cardamom Mountains in the country's southwest, a landscape that once supported significant wild populations and is now the focus of active restoration work following decades of harvesting pressure.
This guide covers what's documented about the species, its historic range, its current conservation status, and how Cambodia's trade has shifted from wild harvest toward cultivation.
Chan Crassna: Cambodia's Agarwood Tree
Aquilaria crassna is known locally in Cambodia as chan crassna, and the resin it produces is sometimes referred to as chankrosna. Like other Aquilaria species, it produces resin through the same wound-and-infection process described in our guide to how agarwood resin forms, and it is the same species covered in detail from the Vietnamese side of its range in our Vietnamese agarwood guide.
The Cardamom Mountains: Cambodia's Historic Heartland
The Cardamom Mountains, a forested range in southwestern Cambodia, are the historic centre of the country's wild agarwood populations, supporting both Aquilaria crassna and, in some areas, Aquilaria malaccensis. Surveys of the region have found Koh Kong province to have the highest recorded density of native agarwood trees among surveyed provinces, with some locations reported at up to three trees per hectare, a useful reminder that even in a historically rich area, resin-bearing trees remain a minority of the overall population, consistent with the scarcity dynamics covered in our guide to wild vs plantation agarwood.
Where Cambodian Agarwood Is Found Today
Aquilaria crassna populations in Cambodia are documented across Pursat, Battambang, Kampong Speu, and Koh Kong within the Cardamom range, with further reported populations in Mondulkiri and around Sihanoukville. These provinces collectively represent the country's main agarwood-producing geography, though the balance has shifted heavily toward cultivated sources, covered below.
Curious how Cambodia's neighbour handles the same dominant species?
Vietnamese Agarwood: Trầm Hương and Kỳ NamCritically Endangered, and What That Means Here
Aquilaria crassna was assessed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List in a 2018 assessment, citing an estimated population decline of more than 80 percent over the last three generations, driven by sustained overexploitation for agarwood. This is a more severe status than a general regional description might suggest, and it sits alongside the species' CITES Appendix II listing, in place since 2004 as part of the wider Aquilaria and Gyrinops protections covered in our guide to agarwood and CITES.
From Wild Forest to Plantation
Decades of harvesting, historically involving felling trees in the search for resin-bearing wood, have left wild Aquilaria crassna populations in Cambodia severely depleted. Trade sources describe the large majority of Cambodian agarwood reaching the market today as coming from cultivated trees rather than wild harvest, a shift driven by the same combination of wild scarcity and regulatory pressure covered generally in our wild vs plantation guide. Material still marketed as wild-harvested Cambodian agarwood should be treated with particular caution given how depleted the wild resource base is documented to be.
Restoration Efforts in the Cardamom Mountains
Active conservation work is underway in the Cardamom Mountains specifically targeting native agarwood restoration. A project supported by the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO) is working with local communities, forestry authorities, and international partners to restore native Aquilaria populations across the Cardamom range, combining ecological restoration with sustainable livelihood support for communities that have historically depended on agarwood harvesting.
Cambodian Agarwood in the Market Today
For buyers, Cambodian agarwood today is, in practice, almost synonymous with plantation-grown Aquilaria crassna, and claims of wild-harvested "Cardamom" or "Koh Kong" agarwood deserve close scrutiny given the species' Critically Endangered status and the heavily depleted state of the wild population documented by conservation researchers. As with other origins in this hub, provenance documentation matters considerably more than regional naming alone, a subject covered in full in our guides to quality and authenticity and the buying guide.