Namibia's landmark trees dying from climate change

By Brigitte Weidlich (AFP) WINDHOEK — An old man gently touches the trunk of the huge quiver tree with a worried look on his wrinkled face, as he points at several dead branches lying on Namibia’s rugged terrain. “When I was a boy, my grandfather made my first quiver from a branch of this old tree about seventy years ago, but I fear the tree is dying — too many dead branches. Things changed over the past few years, and these trees just die,” he tells AFP. Aaron Kairabeb works on a farm 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of Namibia’s capital Windhoek, where tourists go on scenic hikes and also view a cluster of the giant aloe trees that can live for more than 300 years. They grow in arid regions of Namibia and South Africa and are well adapted to their environment through water-storing succulent leaves and shallow root systems. The Bushman or San people used to make quivers for their bows from the trees’ dead branches. But over the past few years Kairabeb, who grew up in the area, noticed that large quiver trees — protected in Namibia and by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) — were drying out and toppling over. Scientists found this is most likely caused by drought, with weather data showing that average temperatures have increased over past decades across the tree’s range. The quiver tree is now red-listed in a report released by the Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) during last month’s climate summit in Copenhagen. …

Namibia’s landmark trees dying from climate change