Moroni, Comoros--In a dense thicket in the middle of the impoverished Indian Ocean archipelago of the Comoros, Ibrahim Bacar is plucking tiny ylang ylang flowers.
The barely visible yellow blossoms with an intoxicating aroma contain the oil that provides the distinctive scent in Chanel N°5, one of the world's best-selling fragrances.
Ylang ylang is also a key ingredient of many other perfumes and Comoros is the world's top producer of the essential oil extracted from the flower -- a commodity that makes up one-tenth of the archipelago's total export revenues.
But decades of under-investment in ageing plantations, an exodus of flower gatherers willing to do the painstaking work and deforestation are threatening production of the flower.
"Despite the economic importance of the essential oil of ylang ylang, it is surprising that there is no improvement programme for the plant," wrote Celine Benini, an agriculture specialist at Belgium's Liege University, in a study.
Each year, Comoros produces between 30 and 40 tonnes of the essential oil mainly on the island of Anjouan, home to 350 distilleries.
"One container of 30 litres (around eight gallons) is worth several thousand euros, it is a gold bar," said Gerard overseeing the Humblot plantation, named after the French naturalist Leon Humblot.
AFP
