Lingering Greens

Sheih

Posted on September 3, 2007

Last Saturday, HRH Raja Perempuan Kelantan sent her adopted children from the Sekolah Sri Harapan of Pengkalan Chepa to visit the Gaharu’s site near Dewan Beta, Kelantan. To be precise, Gaharu is actually the name of the product that produced by the Depu Tree or some would prefer to call it Karas Tree. Gaharu can be make into 59 products to date which includes the most popular used as perfume, air freshener, beads, soap, shampoo, spa massage’s oil and artifacts. According to local scientist and researcher, Dr Rasol Awang of Malaysian Nuclear Agency (MINT), currently the world production of Gaharu can only cater to 20% of the worldwide market.

Creating awareness for the youngs

The Tuanku’s adopted children visited the area where Agarwood Industry (Kelantan) Sdn Bhd has used as test site where the Depu trees were being inoculated to produce the Gaharu.

Inoculating Process

Teaching the young

The visit was coordinated by representatives of The Forestry Department and Mr. Wan Omar from Menteri Besar Corporation. For more details of the Gaharu, readers can get in touch with the Secretariat of “Skim Galakan Tanaman Pokok Karas Di Negeri Kelantan” at,

Perbadanan Menteri Besar Kelantan

Tingkat 6 Bangunan PMBK

Jalan Kuala Krai

15150 Kota Bharu

Kelantan Darul Naim

Telephone: +609 747 4082

Fax: +609 747 7815

(Attention Mr Wan Omar)

 

Professional at work

Alternatively if you have the land and wish to grow your own Depu’s plantation, you can get in touch directly with Agarwood Industry (Kelantan) Sdn Bhd to get the technical advice and to buy the young trees. Agarwood’s contact person, Tuan Haji Zaidi can be contacted at,

Agarwood Industry (Kelantan) Sdn Bhd

Lot 1481, KM12 Kg Salor

15100  Kota Bharu

Kelantan

Telephone: +609 701 1578

Fax: +609 701 1579

Email: agarwood@streamyx.com, agarwoodkelantan@gmail.com

 

Both PMBK and Agarwood Industry (Kelantan) Sdn Bhd will surely welcome investors to help to develop this lingering project.

 

Dr Pheraphan’s work of art

The wild Depu’s trees grew largely in the jungles. The most interesting facts that I found was that, mostly up to today, the Depu’s tree that Agarwood Industry identified, belongs to the poor people. It is simply because when the rich cleared their piece of land, they can afford to cut down the once non-valuable tree. However, the trees are so thick and tall; it will cost the poor a fortune to cut it down.

 

Today, Agarwood Industry has taken over the management of the wild tree from the poor by paying some sum of money. The revenue that Agarwood makes from the tree is going to be shared with the owner of the land.

 

Agarwood Industry (Kelantan) Sdn Bhd ready to serve you

You can grow up to 400 trees in every acre of land. After five years we can start the inoculating process of the tree, and beginning from that you can start to harvest the tree for every tree months until it die a natural death and created the core inside it. The core is known to be very expensive and can be priced from few hundred ringgit to tens of thousands per kilogramme.

 

Dr Pheraphan checking the oil extraction process

In Thailand, planters sell one living tree from few thousand ringgit to up to ten thousand ringgit.

I guess it is time to turn green.