Ethically Sourced Palo Santo

“Ethically sourced” is not a feeling. It is a paper trail.

Almost every palo santo listing online says the wood is sustainably or ethically sourced. Very few of them say who collected it, under which permit, or how you would check. The phrase has become decoration.

It has a concrete meaning, and it is boring in the best way: the tree fell on its own, someone was legally authorised to pick it up, the wood travelled with documents that name that authorisation, and the exporter can hand you those documents. Everything else — the photography, the language about sacred forests — is downstream of whether those four things are true.

This page explains what to look for, including the parts that do not flatter us, and then shows exactly how our own chain works so you can judge it against the same standard.

Three different trees are called palo santo. Only one of them is ours.

Most of the confusion about whether palo santo is endangered comes from a naming collision. At least three unrelated trees carry the name, and their legal status could not be more different.

Bursera graveolens — the Peruvian and Ecuadorian one

The dry-forest tree whose fallen wood is burned as incense. This is what we sell. The IUCN classifies it as Least Concern and it is not listed in the CITES appendices.

Bulnesia sarmientoi — the Gran Chaco one

A hardwood from Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, sold as guaiacwood or verawood and also called palo santo. It is listed in CITES Appendix II, so international trade requires permits. This is the tree most articles are actually describing when they say palo santo is protected.

Guaiacum species — the Caribbean and Central American ones

Guaiacum officinale and Guaiacum sanctum, also called palo santo or guayacán, are CITES-listed as well. Different family, different wood, same name in Spanish.

Is palo santo endangered? The honest answer.

For Bursera graveolens, the species is not endangered: Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, absent from CITES. That is the factual answer and we would rather give it than let a comfortable ambiguity sell more wood.

The regulatory history is more interesting than the current status. Peru declared the species threatened by decree in 2006, which is when the rule appeared that only naturally fallen or dead wood may be collected. The species was removed from Peru's protected list in 2014. The collection rule stayed.

But species status is the wrong question. Illegal logging of palo santo in north-western Peru is a documented, ongoing problem, driven by exactly the demand that made the wood popular. A tree can be Least Concern globally and still be stripped out of a particular dry forest by people cutting living trees because the price is good. That is why the question worth asking a supplier is not “is it endangered” but “where did this specific batch come from, and who says so”.

What Peruvian law actually requires

Palo santo is a forest product, and in Peru forest products move under the supervision of SERFOR, the National Forestry and Wildlife Service. Three documents matter.

The collection authorisation

Someone must be authorised to take the wood from a specific area. Without it the wood is not legal in Peru regardless of whether the tree was standing or fallen.

The forest transport guide

Wood in transit inside Peru travels with a guide tying the load to that authorisation. It is what a road check asks for, and it is what links a sack of wood to a place.

The phytosanitary certificate

For export, a certificate covering plant health. Customs authorities in the destination country routinely ask for it, and its absence is one of the more common reasons a palo santo shipment is held.

Fallen wood is not a sacrifice. It is the only wood worth having.

There is a version of this story where sourcing ethically means accepting a worse product. With palo santo the opposite is true, and understanding why makes the whole legal framework easier to trust.

The aroma comes from resin, and the resin concentrates in the wood only after the tree has died and lain on the forest floor — years of it. A living tree cut down produces wood that is close to odourless. So the rule that you may only collect naturally fallen, aged wood is not a restriction that a producer works around: it describes the only material that does what the customer wants.

This is also the practical test for a buyer. Weak-smelling sticks that need relighting every few seconds are usually young or freshly cut wood. Poor quality and dubious origin tend to arrive in the same box.

How to check any supplier, in five questions

These work on us as well as on anyone else. A supplier who cannot answer them quickly is not necessarily doing something wrong, but they are certainly not in a position to prove otherwise.

1. Are you the producer or a reseller?

A reseller cannot show you a collection authorisation because they never held one. That does not make them illegitimate, but it means the traceability question just moves one step further away and usually stops there.

2. Can I see the forest transport guide for a recent batch?

Not a certificate of good intentions — the actual document that moved actual wood. Names, dates, quantities.

3. Which region does it come from?

A specific answer, not “Peru”. Palo santo grows across a wide range and the dry forests of the north-west are where both the good wood and the illegal logging are.

4. What is your company's tax ID, and does it match the exporter on the documents?

In Peru that is the RUC. Ours is 20600767861, Munay Ki Peru SAC. If the name on the invoice and the name on the forestry paperwork are different companies, ask why.

5. What happens if my customs authority asks for documentation?

The answer should be a list of documents, not reassurance. If the supplier has to go and ask someone else, you are the one carrying the risk.

Who actually collects this wood

Our wood comes from the dry forest around Las Lomas, in the Piura region of north-western Peru. It is collected by families who live there and who have been doing this work across generations — not by a crew we send in for a season.

That matters for a reason beyond fairness. People who expect to still be collecting in the same forest in ten years have a direct interest in it still being there. An outside crew paid by weight does not. Most of what keeps a dry forest intact is not enforcement; it is whether the person with the machete has a reason to care.

For every exported batch we plant new palo santo with those same communities. We are not going to claim this offsets anything with a number we cannot verify — young trees in a dry forest have a hard life and we do not have decades of survival data. It is a commitment we keep and can show you, not an accounting trick.

United States: the Lacey Act declaration

The Lacey Act makes it an offence to import plants or plant products that were harvested illegally in their country of origin, and requires a declaration for the products in scope: the scientific name of the species, the country of harvest, the quantity and the value. Palo santo sticks, chips and cones are in scope, and so are essential oils since Phase VII of the implementation took effect in December 2024. Since January 2026 the declaration is filed electronically; paper forms are no longer accepted.

The importer files it, but it is only as good as what the supplier can back up. A supplier who cannot say under which authorisation the wood was collected leaves the importer carrying the risk: a false or missing declaration can mean penalties of thousands of dollars per violation and seizure of the goods. This is the concrete reason the paperwork above matters to a buyer in the United States, not a matter of values.

What we hand you for the declaration

Species (Bursera graveolens) and country of harvest (Peru, Las Lomas, Piura) on the invoice; SERFOR Resolution No. 000418-2023 and the forest transport guide of the batch; the SENASA phytosanitary certificate; invoice and packing list in the name of Munay Ki Peru SAC, RUC 20600767861.

European Union: the Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)

The EU Deforestation Regulation covers wood and wood products, and palo santo sticks, chips and pieces fall under the wood codes in its Annex I (HS 4401 and 4404). Whoever first places them on the EU market is an operator and has to run due diligence: gather information on the product, the supplier and the origin — including the geolocation of the plots the wood came from — assess and mitigate the risk, and file a due diligence statement in the EU information system before customs clears the shipment.

After two postponements, the dates confirmed by the European Commission in July 2026 are these: large and medium operators from 30 December 2026; micro and small operators from 30 June 2027. If you import palo santo into the EU, the question to ask any supplier now is whether they can provide the plot-level origin information your statement will need. We can, because we collect the wood ourselves under an approved management plan in a defined area; ask for it at the quoting stage.

If you are buying wholesale, this is also a customs question

For a shop buying a few kilos, sourcing is a values question. For an importer it is also an operational one: a container of palo santo without the right paperwork can be held, and the cost of that lands on the buyer, not the exporter.

Every shipment we send travels with its SERFOR documentation, its forest transport guide and its phytosanitary certificate. If your market has a specific requirement — the EU Deforestation Regulation has changed what several of our European customers need to file — tell us at the quoting stage and we will tell you plainly whether we can meet it and what we would send.

Tell us the volume and the destination port and we return a landed cost within 24 hours, with the documentation list for that market attached.