The International Day for Biological Diversity is commemorated every year on May 22. The theme for this year’s celebration is ‘Building a common future for life.’
In conjunction with the celebration, New Sarawak Tribune reaches out to Pa ‘Lungan community leader (KK) Heyward Inu to learn how his people make money from natural resources.
The Kelabits of Pa ‘Lungan have been harvesting the fruits from a type of plant known as tenem.
“Tenem trees can be found in a forest near our village. So, we would go into the forest in groups to collect its fruits.
“But now, the trees can be planted by the people for a proper management. Like myself, I have planted more than 200 trees.
“The trees can take up to four years to bear fruits. The fruits usually are ready to be harvested in June.
“So, we will be harvesting them soon,” said Inu.
He said that they used to cut wild trees of tenem after the harvesting season because usually it will reproduce through seed dispersal by birds.
He added that now they have learned not to cut the trees, but to trim the branches to reproduce its fruits.
Inu explained that after harvesting, the fruits are then boiled for distillation process.
“It takes about eight to ten hours to boil perfectly. After some period, the oil comes from the steam. Every little drop of the oil is then collected.
“After we have collected the oil, we would send them to Sarawak Biodiversity Centre (SBC).
“SBC is responsible in further processing the oil. We are only supplying raw oil. SBC would then reprocess the oil into other products,” Inu explained.
The community in Kampung Kiding, Padawan uses the leaves of tenem plants. In other parts of Sarawak such as Pa’ Lungan as well as Pa’ Ukat and Long Kerebangan, the local community use tenem fruits.
Inu said the oil extracted from tenem fruits is traditionally used as food flavour.
The roots of tenem trees can also be used for many purposes. The fruits are good for natural food flavouring. The fruits can be pounded and grounded then mixed with salt as food flavour.
Some other times, dried fruits of tenem are put into meat broth to make it more savoury.
It is also traditionally used to treat stomach-ache and back-ache.
Inu said initially most of those involved in the process were women who would collect the tenem fruits.
“Nowadays, many young men are involved in the production of tenem.
“It’s becoming their bread and butter,” he said.
He revealed that initially, it was hard to get young people to be involved in the business.
But since more people has benefited from tenem, more are joining.
He said his people has achieved a lot from the LitSara®️ project.
“After the SBC approached us, we shared our traditional knowledge with them.
“Then they helped us with research programmes, quality control of the oil, marketing as well as sales of the product.
“SBC even provided us with distillation units. They also helped us with methods of farming.
“Not to forget, they also help us in documenting this traditional knowledge,” he added.
For the record, LitSara®️ project kicked off in 2005 with the discovery of tenem during a traditional knowledge documentation field trip at Long Telingan.
Tenem was later identified as Litsea Cubeba and documented to be used by the Kelabits and the Bidayuhs who called the plant Pahkak.
The oil from tenem tree is widely used as essential oil that can be found in most local products.
SBC has produced a range of products from the oil that benefits communities involved and it can be found in the local markets.
Among the natural personal care -products from tenem oil are body wash, shampoo, soap and hand-sanitiser.
