Status Report on Global Neem Usage - Gtz

2. GLOBAL NEEM DISSEMINATION AND USAGENeem’s key applications in Africa include use as a shade tree and as a source of firewood.Knowledge of neem’s efficacy as a traditional medical plant is widespread; however, its potentialfor use as a natural pesticide is by no means common knowledge.How and when the neem tree reached America is not known. There are a few old, isolatedspecimens on some of the Antilles islands, which might possibly date back to Indian immigrantsin the former English colonies (19).In the meantime, the neem tree population in Central and South America has continued togrow; the largest number of neem trees on the American continent is located on Haiti whereseveral hundred thousand specimens were planted back in the 1960s to restock the forestsand protect against erosion. In the last ten years, numerous neem trees have been establishedin the Caribbean states, namely the Dominican Republic, Cuba, St. Lucia and Jamaicaand also in Central American countries such as Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras. Theneem tree is also found for example in Baja California and Yucatan, and has recently beenestablished in plantations in the hotter, lower regions of Mexico (19, 45).In South America, neem trees are planted particularly in the lower-lying, drier areas ofVenezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia. The neem tree has great potential in the dry,central savannah and north-east of Brazil. Recently more than 300 000 trees were plantedthere (10, 19, 21, 24, 25) as part of huge afforestation programmes aiming to plant some tenmillion neem trees by the year 2003.In the USA a few trees have been planted in Florida, Oklahoma, Arizona and California.9