Tang, owner of an incense product company, holding up hand-rolled joss sticks in his workshop in Hong Kong. Photo: AFP
Geneticist Zhang Huarong walks through the forest near his Hong Kong research lab, gesturing towards a rotting incense tree stump that is one of over a dozen illegally felled for the valuable wood inside.
A stone's throw from the city's urban centre are forests home to trees that produce fragrant – and valuable – agarwood, used in a number of high-end products from incense and perfume to traditional Chinese medicine.
