The Forest for the Trees

Once upon a time in the land of Santo Antão, Cabo Verde, there were no trees.  Well, there weren´t many trees. Only a few species sparsely scattered the shrubby, dry landscape, including the thorny acacia and spiky dragoeira, or dragon tree.  With the introduction of plantation owners and slaves to the island in the 1500´s, the trees were gradually pruned to near obsolescence.  Their woody branches were burned under cooking pots and dragoeiras were chopped to harvest the coveted “dragon´s blood” sap.  (When added to sugar cane grogue, the red sap was famed to increase a man´s virility.)  Free ranging goats munched away lower branches, shrubs and grasses leaving behind exposed rock and dusty dirt.

By the 1940´s the Portuguese colonizers of the land realized the situation offered much room for improvement.  (One report uses the term “wasteland” to describe the landscape.)  Strong Atlantic winds that swept across the island´s mountains were carrying with them much of the topsoil.  So were bi-annual torrential downpours.  The rains carried brown streams of fertile earth to the sea.  In the hopes of reducing soil erosion and increasing infiltration of rain and captured fog into the ground water table, the Portuguese began a massive tree-planting campaign.

Because much of Santo Antão´s arable land is nearly vertical, the process first required the building of terraces and stone retaining walls.  Each stone was carried on the head or shoulders of the slaves´ descendants, the Cape Verdean people.

Considering the intense labor that went into the planting of each tree within the unnatural forest, it´s amazing to witness the new ecosystem´s success as well as extension.  Although the current forestry practices managed by the government are not perfect, they do provide cooking fuel and some income for several rural communities in addition to shade and protection from erosive forces.

The fact that the afforestation efforts have been successful in Santo Antão, Cape Verde but have failed in similar situations around the world has become a point of interest for the US Geological Survey.  During the month of December, Scott has been researching the history of the forest, looking at its socio-economic impact from the eyes of community members and forestry officials, and profiling its current biological composition. 

Meanwhile, I´ve been making wallets out of juice boxes : )

Our two years of Peace Corps Service were closely linked to the systems surrounding the management of the forest as well as the ecosystem´s impact on community and economic development.  The successes and failures of the afforestation process have been daily on our minds, and so Scott´s current work has been a natural extension of our efforts here. 

In a couple of short weeks, our time in Cape Verde will be coming to a close and we´ll be leaving behind this unnatural, but majestic forest.  

This photo of our town, Água das Caldeiras, was taken in  1959.   You can see our neighbor Olavo´s house.

This is the same location today.