Waria Waria trees grow prolifically in Papua New Guinea's Western province. It's a type of melaleuca, and its leaves contain oil with basically the same medicinal qualities as eucalypt oil. The locals have long known its benefits, but they needed help to develop it into a viable industry. So they asked Australia's science agency CSIRO for help.

In partnership with the PNG National Forest Authority, the PNG Biological Foundation and ACIAR the scientists set to work to establish a sustainable essential oil industry.

All sorts of claims have been made about the uses of benefits of the oil locally including solving baldness and curing malaria and so forth but basically the oil is a cineole rich oil like our medicinal eucalpytus oil and has very similar uses.

The oil is extracted from the leaves by distillation, so a portable, demountable still, was designed, for transporting on a plane from Australia and through the thick Papua New Guinea bush. And in May 1996 the first pilot still was set up in Bensbach.

The oil being lighter than water comes to the top and there are quite easy means to tap the oil off, separate from the water

There are now five stills in three villages. But more information is needed about the region before a viable industry can be developed.

Part of this project we're now engaged on, is surveying the natural resource of West Province for oils with potential for commercial development.

Often the only way to carry out that survey, is to set out on bicycles over hundreds of kilometres to study the local vegetation and determine sustainable harvesting techniques.

The oil industry we hope will provide a substantial and sustained income for villages, like this, so the villagers can afford things we take for granted.

These villages have no power or water supply and little access to medicine.

The Waria Waria oil is already popular in the Port Moresby markets, but it's hoped that eventually the oil can find a wider market and create a viable local industry.

It's an opportunity that they've given us that we are willing to continue with the project.