L-R: Moses Waiviro Agriculture Graduate Trainee under the OTDF GDS Program sorting the CA Kit boxes, OTDF Manager for Program Services Sustainable, Mr. Andrew Mari, and Fr Leonardus Kartika.

Members of the St Gerard Catholic Parish living in the North Fly District of Western Province are excited to be involved in planting eaglewood trees.

According to Fr Leonardus Kartika SMM, Financial Administrator for the St Gerard Catholic Parish of the Daru-Kiunga Catholic Diocese, the parish maintains a five-hectare eaglewood plantation at Kokonda.

The delivery of the CA Kits (inoculation kits) is a response to a written request from the church congregation for assistance for their eaglewood block.

When thanking Ok Tedi Development Foundation (OTDF) for the Kits, he said with the capsules on hand, they can now complete the process of infecting (inoculating) the eaglewood trees.

“This inoculation process will enable the trees to form enough agarwood to harvest and sell to support community work facilitated by the Montfort Missionaries,” he said.

There are currently five workers engaged on the plantation site.

OTDF on June 25th delivered six boxes of CA Kits containing more than 500 capsules for their inoculation program.

Two of the boxes contain tubes that will be used to insert the inoculation capsules into the bark of matured eaglewood trees. This is to begin the process of making agar.

OTDF Media