Eastern Indonesia's Makian Island is part of what Portuguese, Dutch and British traders once knew as the Spice Islands, home of cloves and nutmeg. Now islanders hope it will soon be known in Europe as the home of the mineral-rich kenari nut, which in the past was only locally traded. A village enterprise, one of 42,000 set up as part of the government's poverty reduction plan, has been bringing Sebelei residents a good return since 2019. The project includes six small greenhouses, where kenari nuts stacked on aluminium trays dry in a day or two, then are loaded onto boats bound for the port of Ternate and flown to Indonesia's capital Jakarta to be packaged into retail products. Wastage has halved since the greenhouses began operating. Last year, Indonesia recorded its first recession since 1998, as pandemic unemployment pushed the poverty above 10% for the first time since 2017. The government hopes to create 75,000 village enterprises by 2024, easing pressure on tropical forests.

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