Acacia mangium Willd. - A Fast Growing Tree for Tropical Plantation

Distribution

A. mangium has a fragmented natural distribution which stretches from Indonesia (i. e. on the islands of Sula, Ceram, Aru, and Iriyan Jaya), Papua New Guinea (PNG) and north-eastern Queensland in Australia (Fig. 1). The range is 1º-18º-57'S latitudinal and 125°22'-146°17'E longitudinal. The mean altitudinal range is from just above sea level to about 100 m, with an upper limit of 780 m. In Asia, the country with A. mangium natural population distribution is Indonesia. In Oceania, there were Australian Northern Territory, Queensland and Papua New Guinea. A detailed description of the natural distribution and ecology about A. mangium is available in Awang and Taylor (1993) and Krisnawati et al. (2011).

^{Fig. 1. Generalized range of natural distribution of Acacia mangium.}

A. mangium was introduced into many countries. For example, Indonesia and Malaysia have established large-scale plantations for the production of paper pulp. In China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, the commercial planting of A. mangium is increasing very quickly (Awang and Taylor 1993). Of course, the species has also been introduced to other countries as a plantation tree, such as other Asia countries (Bangladesh, China, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam), Africa (Benin, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar and Zimbabwe) and Western Hemisphere (Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba and Hawaii).