Essence of Indonesia: The story of cajuput oil and its importance to the community

Client

Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)

In almost every Indonesian household, a small bottle of cajuput oil is kept for remedying various health problems. 

Cajuput oil is distilled from the leaves of a species of Melaleuca native to Indonesia, Timor-Leste and the Top End of Australia. With demand for the oil outstripping production, a selection and breeding program sought to increase the productivity of cajuput trees and the quality of oil produced.

This book, published by ACIAR in 2021, describes the cajuput species and explains how to cultivate the trees, how to improve the genetic quality of the trees, and how to distill the oil.

What I did

I worked closely with the lead author, Dr Anto Rimbawanto, a research scientist at Indonesia’s Centre for Forest Biotechnology and Tree Improvement, to copyedit and proofread the 82-page book, Essence of Indonesia: The story of cajuput oil and its importance to the community, published by ACIAR in 2022. The book had previously been published in Bahasa Indonesia.

I also wrote alt-text for the 43 images included in the book.