IMG_6239-copywbBaobab
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Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, Africa, November 2021

Some may find the baobab ugly, with its freakishly massive trunk, the huge spread of its crown devoid of leaves, flowers, and fruit much of the year, and its strange, inverted appearance (hence the nickname, “upside-down tree”). But as an integral part of the East African landscape, it is a life saver and life giver, the tree of life’s beauty lying just below its surface. 

IMG_6249-copywbBaobab, Acacia
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Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, Africa, November 2021 Baobabs normally exist as solitary individuals, growing to nearly 90 feet tall. Their enormous trunks can reach a diameter of 46 ft. and are normally composed of multiple stems fused around a hollow core (where they can store up to 32,000 gallons of water). They are providers of water, food, and shelter in times of both plenty and need. And they’ve been documented living for nearly 2,500 years.

Elephants and baobabs have a unique relationship. In times of harsh drought conditions, using only their brute strength, elephants have been observed pushing baobabs over to access its fruit and leaves, stripping away the bark and gaining access to the trees’ stored life-saving water.

Baobabs provide food and shelter for an incredible array of birds and animals. One often sees baboons and monkeys lounging among its limbs, snacking on fruit and flowers. Leopards will haul their kills into its branches to dine in solitude. Countless birds populate the baobab’s crown. Termites build hidden highways just under the trees’ bark. Bees do it in baobabs.

Sadly, though, poachers will also use baobabs for shelter and concealment. After an elephant strips a tree’s bark away, often hollowing out the trunk in the process, poachers have been known to stash their trophies (elephant tusks, rhino horns, etc.) in the cavity. The hollows may be so large that the poachers may themselves camp within them. Despite the poachers’ perversion of the baobab’s life-preserving properties, however, the trees’ ecological role remains pure, and essential.

But humans have an intimate, positive connection with the baobab tree, as well. Its leaves are rich in iron and can be boiled and eaten like spinach. Seeds can be roasted to make a coffee-like drink. The fruit pulp has six times more vitamin C than oranges and is exported as an important nutritional complement in European, U.S. and Canadian markets.

On several occasions, I sampled the delightful juice made from the tree’s fruit pulp (which can also be made into jam and beer). The trees’ flowers are edible and the young seedlings’ taproot can be eaten like a carrot. Their large crowns provide ample shade footprints, making baobabs ideal locations for markets in many rural villages where the trade in baobab tree products provides an income for local communities.

Walking among these giants, I was humbled at their longevity and majesty. Flying over them, the baobab forests stretch to the horizon, seemingly mighty and untouchable. But as you can imagine, we humans are killing them. Reports document that in the past decade, nine of Africa’s thirteen oldest and largest baobab trees have died. Scientists hypothesize that rising temperatures due to the climate crisis are making the trees more susceptible to drought, diseases, and fire or have simply killed the trees outright. Were the baobabs to disappear, mass extinctions throughout the African continent would surely follow. 

IMG_5907-copywbBaobab
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Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, Africa, November 2021