TAGBILARAN CITY, November 11 (PIA)—Ilang-ilang or ylang-ylang (Cananga odorensis) offers a sweet promise to tree farmers and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) makes sure of that.
During her visit to San Pascual Ubay where people’s organizations have been contracted to reforest bald rolling cogon hills with native trees as part of the National Greening Program (NGP), DENR Secretary Regina Paz Lopez assured the people her agency's support.
She said the DENR would rather be looking at their impact to the people’s lives rather than other usual agency accomplishment parameters.
And having been told that the place has about 5 hectares dedicated to planting more than 2000 ilang-ilang intercropped with coffee and bananas, she egged the DENR people to do something about it.
And with the secretary’s in her official ocular inspection and visit to Bohol was DENR National Resources Development Corporation chief Sylvia Ordoñez who had it figured out.
“We will bring here a distillation plant to extract the essence of ilang-ilang,” Ordoñez announced amidst the ripple of applause from the people in attendance.
But, the NRD Corporation chief added, “We will have to plant more of the ilang-ilang to make sure we can have a sustainable operation for the distillation plant.”
According to wikipilipinas.org, “the fragrance of ylang-ylang is rich and deep with notes of rubber and custard, and bright with hints of jasmine and neroli.
The essential oil of the flower is obtained through steam distillation of the flowers and separated into different grades (extra; 1; 2; 3) according to when the distillates are obtained. The main aromatic component of ylang-ylang is methyl anthranilate.
Already known for its delicate scent, ilang-ilang, or ylang-ylang has been among the more famed material for traditional welcome leis in the Philippines; the tree being endemic to the region along with Indonesia and Malaysia.
In Bohol, especially for those tree-farmers awarded the Community Based Forest Management agreement for the reforestation of the 240 hectares of idle lands, the DENR move is crucial to the present market match up of the ilang-ilang with a perfume manufacturer British company based in London: The Body Shop.
Visiting Bohol and landing via chopper in the heart of a 240 hectares site for the National Greening Program in Cambugsay Healing Hills, San Pascual, Lopez also shared her revolutionary ideas and her agency's directions under her steer.
“It is not by the number of trees but by the way people’s lives are improved,” she beamed amidst the gathering of communities patiently basking in the harsh morning sun.
The DENR has been into wave upon waves of reforestation projects with communities participating and getting paid for each tree seedling planted.
But, with areas filling up, many authorities have theorized that the usual forest fires that consume large patches of reforestation may have been done to make sure communities can still get planting contracts.
Coming to Ubay, which is among Bohol's towns with a great magnitude of poverty, plantation, Lopez, along with her DENR officials including Undersecretary Isabelo Montejo and Regional Director Emma Melana could not have missed the packets of poverty sprinkled in the otherwise sparse vegetation.
Ubay Federated Tree Planters Association Inc. chair Bernardita Albarando said they put up the Cambugsay Model Tree Farm to present their CBFMA area into tourism destination for additional income to farmers.
Grants from international partners also allowed the communities to go into agro-forestry development for some 16 hectares, she added.
Another 115 hectares have been planted with indigenous tree species while some 15 hectares are now planted with timber, she added.(rac/PIA-7/Bohol)
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