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The Socotra dragon tree only grows on the Yemeni island of Socotra. An extraordinary tree, threatened with extinction by drought, cyclones and farm animals. It is his story that has chosen to tell the independent journalist Quentin Müller, the author of the first text of an original magazine published in France, Disappearance.
(Rebroadcast from 9/01/2022)
Socotra is a dream island in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Yemen and Oman, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 due to its unique landscapes and biodiversity. Socotra is home to a tree that only grows on this island, an almost magical tree, with an already magical name: the dragon tree.
Journalist Quentin Müller, a specialist in Yemen, waited six years before being able to set foot in Socotra and finally see this dragon tree. A journey that he describes in the first letter published by Disappearancea French fortnightly available only by subscription, to reconnect with the epistolary tradition, by sending by post a letter devoted to a disappearance in progress on the planet.
« It was a huge emotion for mesays Quentin Müller when he remembers his first encounter with a dragon rider from Socotra. I asked the driver to stop, and I just wanted to touch the bark, the sprawling branches that are totally incredible. I had never seen that on another tree. It’s a bit of a mushroom tree, it’s a UFO. It is another living being. You say to yourself : I’m on another planet, really. »
The dragon tree is 80% water
Dracaena cinnabari is an amazing tree, and not only because of its blood-red sap, used since antiquity as a pigment and in traditional medicine, and harvested only once a year. A tree that we only come across today in Socotra, when it populated the forests of Europe 20 million years ago. In the genre Dracaenahe has only one little brother with similar characteristics, dracaena dracothe Canarian dragon tree, in the Atlantic.
The leaves of the dragon tree grow only at the end of the youngest branches, and form like a parasol – and here the sun is blazing. A parasol carried, at arm’s length, by the oldest branches. Inside: 80% water. To resist drought, the tree fills up during the monsoons, but they are increasingly rare with climate change, as storms and cyclones increase. ” To give you an idea, Socotra was hit by a cyclone on average every twenty years. ; in 2015 there were two ! Which left their mark: thousands of dragon riders were slaughtered.
« When we go to the Dixam plateaus, continues Quentin Muller, the first thing you see are obviously standing trees, but also trees on the ground, and that’s sad. We went to a kind of graveyard of dragon trees, and there are plenty of them on the ground. A disaster for an extremely slow growing tree. The Socotra dragon tree does not display its spectacular crown until it reaches adulthood, not before 800 to 1,000 years!
A refuge of biodiversity
Threatened by global warming, drought and cyclones, the Socotra dragon tree is also attacked by goats! ” The small peasants let their goats graze all over the mountain, and they graze anything, everything they can, and especially the shoots of the small dragon trees, says Quentin Müller. And we can’t ask these people to stop that because they would lose their income. »
A dilemma frequently encountered by defenders of the environment: how to reconcile the protection of nature and the survival of humans. In Socotra, the population is well aware of the treasure that their island shelters and a nursery has been created, a nursery of dragon trees to repopulate the forest.
The disappearance of the dragon tree would be a disaster for the biodiversity of the island, which is home to more than 800 endemic species. ” For example, there is a lizard that lives only in the bark of the tree. There are also birds that nest in the dragon tree and feed on its fruit. It is also the only tree on the island capable of producing shade, capturing horizontal precipitation, water in clouds and in the air, and keeping it in its foliage. So that makes it a very important species for the balance of Socotria fauna and flora. concludes Quentin Müller. A single tree is missing, and everything is depopulated.
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