Cocoa grown to turn mined-out areas green

RAMU NiCo Management (MCC) environment section at Kurumbukari mine in Madang began planting cocoa seedling at the mined-out areas on Kurumbukari Plateau as part of the nickel/cobalt mine environment rehabilitation.
Over 250 cocoa seedlings were delivered recently by the company to KBK mine environment section of the company’s health safety environment (HSE) department. The HSE, which comes under the supervision of Allan Wahwah and Alex Kambual, planted the seedlings at mine pit two area.
The aim is to explore the growth rates and adaptability of cocoa, eaglewood and sandalwood in the mined-out areas at KBK mine.
Eaglewood and sandalwood are yet to be transported from the Forest Research Institute (FRI) in Lae to KBK mine for rehabilitation.
Wahwah said it may take a year or two to establish these assumptions and then recommendations would be proposed for mass planting as in Bulolo plantation in Morobe.
He said there were plans to raise KBK native seeds present in the KBK primary forest.
These will all be captured in a new memorandum of understanding which he has developed and circulated within the company for critique.
Wahwah, a former agriculturist with PNG Cocoa Coconut Institute who now works with Ramu NiCo community affairs, planned with Kambual to come up with cocoa planting at the mined-out areas as part of mine rehabilitation.