Status report on global Neem usage - Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal

2. GLOBAL NEEM DISSEMINATION AND USAGE
northerly, lower-lying regions of Java, although neem is also endemic to the eastern, drier
islands such as the northern part of Bali, Lombok etc. in several hundred thousand stems.
Several thousand neem trees can been found in the low-lying areas of Papua New Guinea,
mainly near the capital Port Moresby and a few in the Markam valley and on East New
Britain and other smaller islands of the Bismarck Archipelago. Here the tree is, however, only
exploited on a very small scale, as is the case on a few other Pacific Islands on which it is
found (19).
In Fiji several ten thousand fruiting neem trees exist in the drier western parts of Veti Levu
and there have been activities there to set up neem plantations.
Neem has also been introduced on a number of larger islands such as Cebu, Negros etc. in
the Philippines. However the trees are not growing well due to frequent typhoons.
With the exception of Thailand, knowledge about the various uses of neem is not very widespread
in these countries (4, 19, 23).
In Queensland in the north-east of Australia, no less than half a million neem trees have
been planted in recent years. Besides reafforestation and erosion protection, the Australians
have set great hopes on the use of neem as a non-synthetic pesticide (6, 19).
In Western Asia neem is found in the southern, low-lying regions of Iran and in the
Euphrates-Tigris valley in Iraq. Neem trees have also been planted on the Arabian
Peninsula, mostly as shade trees. Indeed, large numbers have been planted near Mecca in
Saudi Arabia (19).
The tree most likely made its way to Africa as a result of British colonialism at the start of this
century along with servants and immigrants from India. Today neem is found in considerable
numbers along the east coast from Eritrea (an estimated 500 000 trees, 46) and Somalia via
Kenya (several million trees) and Tanzania northwards to Mozambique. It is very widespread
– with several hundred thousand trees - in the dry, south-westerly and western regions of
Madagascar (39) and is found throughout the island of Mauritius. Many neem trees are also
to be found in some central regions of East Africa, e.g. in Uganda (25 000), Kenya, Tanzania
and Malawi (350 000 stems) (19, 21, 29).
Neem is frequently encountered in sub-Saharan Africa: many millions of neem trees are
located through the entire area from Ethiopia with roughly 30 000 trees growing in the lower
parts and Sudan (several million), to Senegal (6 million) and Mauritania (approx. 100 000).
The climatic conditions are particularly favourable here between the 10th and the 15th
northern parallels where the climate is hot with a precipitation level of between 500 and 1200
mm/a falling in a rainy season lasting a few months. Neem's northerly expansion is capped
by the decreasing levels of rainfall. This is why, north of the 15th parallel, neem is only ever
found along stretches of water or in villages, where it can be watered. Neem occurs frequently
in Senegal, Ghana (approx. 6 million), Nigeria (some 10 million), Mali, Burkina Faso
and Niger (2.5 million) (1, 14, 19, 21).
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