Delay Cutch from Papua

Gulf Country Headaches Delay Cutch from Papua Production Should Begin In July

AFTER many months of frustrat ing delay, executives of the New Guinea Borneo Mangrove Co.

Ltd. hope to have their factory at Aird Hill, near Kikori, Papua, ready to produce cutch by July, 1954.

S-veral years ago the company decided to extend its operations from Borneo, where it has been producing the material called cutch (an extract of the mangrove tree which is used in tanning, etc.) for the past 40 years. Delays in establishing its plant—which has been described as almost equiv alent to establishing a sugar mill — have been considerable, possibly be cause the difficulties of establishing anything of this nature in the isolation of Papua’s Gulf swamp lands were at first underestimated.

Originally it was expected that pro duction would be under way by mid -1953.

One of the company’s most recent headaches has been the installation of a large boiler weighing 60 or so tons. It was brought out from the UK and shipped to within a short distance of the site. But moving the boiler from the unloading stage to its permanent position, through a few hundred yards of swamp, with little in the way of equipment except a few winches, and human labour, was literally an inch-by inch job that took months.

However, the boiler is now in position, , and production should commence shortly. The company has spent a very large amount of money in establishing itself at Aird Hill—much of the equipment neces sary for the factory is specialised and expensive—but it is expected that the large area of mangrove country available in the Gulf of Papua will make the effort ultim ately well worth while.

It has been discovered, only in recent years, that a mangrove tree does not give the maximum amount of the extract that makes cutch, until it is 80 years of age, although to all appearances it is fully mature 40 years before that.

The cutting cycle is therefore 80 years and it is only in vast areas of swampland, such as exist in Western Papua, that an industry of this nature is a practical proposi tion.

The supply of mangrove bark will come entirely from local natives, who will cut the trees and strip off the bark, and be paid for what they supply. This part of the organisation is now in the hands of Mr. Bruce Hides, a member of

family l * known Papua pioneering A comparatively small European and native staff will be necessary to keep the factory operating once it is established.

Cutch is a crystalline substance, which, for commercial distribution, Is compressed into blocks weighing 100 pounds.