In a mangrove in Malaysia where fireflies dance is a scene as if from a Charles Dickens novel – charcoal factories. The tourist potential is huge, a hotelier says
- Kuala Sepetang may appear bucolic but it was once a centre of tin mining. Pass the fishermen’s homes and there is another industry – charcoal making
- Visitors are welcome to see the Dickensian conditions in the charcoal factories – and the fireflies dancing above the swamp. Is a tourism boom in the offing?
Sea eagles wheel overhead, ever ready to dive for fish. Boats return with tonnes of shrimp and prawns to the docks at the rear of fishermen’s homes, where the catches are hand-sorted by species and size. In front yards, anchovies and squid are hung up to dry in the sun.
Along the village’s seawater canals, boat builders produce vessels for the fishermen.
Kuala Sepetang, in Malaysia, appears a rural idyll, but it has an industrial past – it was once a centre of tin mining – and an industrial present: to take a look inside one of its small charcoal factories – dusty, dirty and extremely hot, but also extraordinary – is to step back in time and into the pages of an Émile Zola or Charles Dickens novel.
Since 1940, the charcoal production process has remained in the careful hands of a few families, who use traditional methods. Each owner has between two and 15 kilns, which are used in rotation so that production remains continuous.
Fifty tonnes of wood go into a single kiln, the wood delivered on boats built by the same men who make the fishing vessels. The kilns are kept at a constant heat for 14 days, after which 10 tonnes of premium charcoal will be extracted from each.