Rattan

1. What is a Rattan

Rattan are spiny climbing palms occuring in the Old World tropics and subtropics. they are the source of cane for the cane furniture industry. while at the same time being used for a wealth of minor purpose locally. Most cane entering world trade is collected from wild and throughout much of south east asia rattan represents the most important forest product after timber. At a local level, rattan may be of great social significance in provoding a not always sustainable source of income for the poorer societies living near the forest for tiding over difficult periods in the agricultural cycle. Recently there has been great interest in the possibility of cultivating rattan.

The most important product of rattan is cane, that is the rattan stem sttripped of its leaft-sheaths; canes are sometimes confused with bamboo and when processed into strips, may be difficult to identify as such bamboo is almost hollow and even in the few solid spicies it is not easily bent. Rattan is always solid and can usually be bent easily without gross deformation. The greatest diversity of rattans occurs within south east asia.

2. Taxonomy

• Kingdom : Plantae
• Divisio : Magnoliophyta
• Class : Liliopsida
• Ordo : Aracalis
• Familly : Arecadeae
• Sub Familly : Calamoideae
• Genus : Calamus & Daemonorops

3. Origin and Geographic Distribution

True rattans are strictly Old World plams belonging to subfamily Calamoideae, Two genera of palms in the New world have climbing members; Desmoncus Mart (all species) in the tribe cocoeae subfamilly arecoideae and chamaedorea Willd. (one only of about 100 species) in tribe hyophorbeae subfamily Ceroxyloideae. Stems of Desmoncus are used for weaving and furniture but they are of inferior quality and little commercial significance except locally. Stems of Chamaedorea elatior Mart are too soft to be use.

In the old world, rattans are distributed in equatorial Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, the foothills of Himalayas, Southern China through the malay Archipelago to Australia and the western Pasific as far as Fiji. The greatest diversity of genera and species is in the western part of Malaysia.

Three of the four genera recorded for Africs are endemic, A fourth genus Calamus L., is represented by a single, very variable species (C. deeratus Mann & H. Wendl). Calamus, the largest rattan genus with bertween 370 - 400 species, occurs the geographical range of rattas. Although overhelmingly thr greatest diversityat both generic and specific levels occur in westrn Malesia, the least specialized rattans un terms of inflorescence and floral morphology are the African genera Laccosperma (G. Mann & H. Wendl), Drude and Eremospatha (G.Mann & Wendl) H. Wendl.

The biogeographpy of the Calamoideae is in need of further study, some rattans are widespread: for example, Calamus scipionum Lour. is fopund from Vietnam southwards to Borneo, Sumatra and Palawan, and Calamus ornatus Bl and its varieties are found in Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, SUmatra, Java, Borneo, the philippiness and Sulawesi. In contrast, other species seem to be very narrow endemics: for example, Daemonorops oblata J. Drans, is found only in Kerangas (Bornean heath forest) forest in northwest Borneo and Daemonorops unijuga J. Dransf is know a single limestone hill in western Serawak.

A striking feature of rattan is the abundance of species which occur sympatrically as many as 30 species may be found in one locally in what is aparently rather uniform vegetation. However, there are probably microhabitat diffrences and subtle breeding barriers between rattan species which are not understood. Nevertheless, the abundance of rattan species in many forest types in Malaysia is one of the distictive and remarkable features of tropical rain forest in the region.

4. Exploitation and Cultivation in Indonesia

Rattan has been cultivated at three scales, plantation scale for commercial use, village scale for domestic use and as a cash crop and experimentally in small plots. The first and most successful rattan plantations are those that were established in the areas around Barito, Kapuas and Kahayan in Kalimanatan about year 1850, Since that, the area of smallholdings along the alluvial flats of the Barito River and its tributaries in Central and South kalimanatan Provinces has increased to 15,000 Ha, mainly planted with Calamus trachycoleus, By the latter part of the 1980's these village level plantations were contributing about 10% of Indonesia's raw rattan supplies.

In East Kalimanatan Province, shifting cultivators have for a long time planted Calamus caesius in forest land left fallow afterf clearence and production of food crops. Within a period of up to 15 years, the rattan is harvested for sale and the land cleared again for food crop production.

Cultivation trials of a few commercial species including Calamus manau were begun in the 1980's, mainly in Java from 1988~1993 the state forestry corporation have planted saveral thousand hectar mainly with Calamus caesius and to a small extent Calamus trachycoleus in both Java and East Kalimantan.

5. History of the Rattan Trade

International trade in rattan dates to the mid 19th century, however, village level utilization in the Asian region spans many centuries. Singapore was the clearing house for practically the entire rattan output of the south east asia and the western pasific at the turn of the 20th century. from 1922 - 1927 it exported from 27500 - 16000 t, mainly to Hongkong, the United states and france. in that order, During this period, export from Kalimantan and Sulawesi increased from 9400 - 19300 t and 10300 - 21800 t respectively. Much of the raw maeterial from Kalimantan was re-export through Singapore and Sulawesi, However, processing and further conversion were mainly done elsewhere.

By the 1970's Indonesia had become the supplier of about 90% of the worlds requirements of raw rattan, in 1977, Singapore, which has no commercially harvestable rattan resources earned more than US$ 21 million from processing and converting rattan into semi-finished, with about 90% of its supllies coming from Indonesia. In the same years, Hongking also without raw rattan of its own, imported more than US$ 26 million worth rattan and rattan products which after conversion and manufacture, was worth US$ 68 million in export value. By comparasion, Indonesia's share of the trade, mainly of unprocessed canes, was only US$ 15 million.

During the 1980's, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia banned the export of rattan except as finished products, these bans have been imposed in order to stimulate the development of rattan based industries and to protect the wild resource. Indonesia, with 75-80% of the world's present production has targeted export earnings of about US$ 600 million in the near future. Malaysia's target for export earnings from rattan furniture is about US$ 60 Million by 1995.

6. Problems of Interpretation of Vernacular Names.

The develoment of extensive local rattan taxonomies reflects the social significance of rattans. Classifications have evolved to deal with rattan as it grows in the forest and to serve the product in the trade. widespread species may be reffered to by many names and where people from different language groups live near to each other, saveral names may be used even for local rattan species. Serious confusion has arisen from the uncritical use of vernacular names.

The following three examples illustrate the problems of interpreting local names. Calamus caesius Bl is commonly reffered to by Malay speakers as "SEGA", yet in the rattan-growing are in Kalimantan Tengah, it is known as "TAMAN", throughout Sarawak, it is known as "LEUTIK" while "SEGA" is used for the related species Calamus optimus Becc,. In Palawan, the presence of true Calamus caesius remained unrecorded untill 1979 because "SIKA" the name by which it is called in Palawan. is said to be the vernacular of an unrelated and rather rare species (Calamus spinifolius Becc) in Luzon. Uncritical use of the lexican of Philippine vernacular plant name obscured the presence of one of the best small-diameter furniture canes, for which a cultivation procedure had already been developed that caould have been tranferred aerlier to the philippines. Incidentally, it was also responsible for the incorrect recording of calamus spinifolius in Palawan.

Another example is provided by the Malay name 'rotan batu', in Peninsular malaysia this is used fairly consistently for Calamus insignis Becc., a species with a stem diameter of 8-10 mm, in Sabah it is used for an unrelated species, Calamus subinermis Becc., which has a stem diameter of 18-25 mm.

The final example is one of the most serious confusions, cities 'tohiti' as the vernacular name of a rare, poorly known species, calamus inops Becc., herbarium specimens of this species have a stem diameter of about 12 mm. 'Tohiti' is currently also used as at trade name for the best quality large diameter (22-30mm) cane in Sulawesi. There is evidence of the use of 'tohiti' for at least 4 species, yet the trade name 'tohiti' has uncritically been referred to as Calamus inops, which is unlikely to be correct because of the much smaller stem diameter of this species. Account of various aspect of the canes known as 'tohiti' have been published under the scientific name calamus inops, yet the result cannot refer to this species and in the absence of voucher specimens, the cane identity cannot be established, the experimental result are thus irreproducable and useless.

Therefore, great caution is required in the interpretation of vervacular names. In experimental work it is important to prepare herbarium specimens as voucher to provide an essential reference. (Prosea - rattan)