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Climate change drives ancient Socotra dragons blood tree to brink of extinction · INSIGHT TODAY

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  Speaker 1: Him any island of Soukotrists. It's in the Indian Ocean
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  Speaker 1: between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. It's
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  Speaker 1: one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, sometimes called
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  Speaker 1: the Galopagos of the Indian Ocean. More than a third
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  Speaker 1: of the plant species on the island doesn't exist anywhere
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  Speaker 1: else on Earth. That includes a type of dragon's blood tree.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them are centuries old, but now they're struggling
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  Speaker 1: to survive in the face of intensifying threats from climate
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  Speaker 1: change associated press. Oceans and Climate correspondent Anika Homa Schlog
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  Speaker 1: went to Sukolcha for a first hand look. Anika, first
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  Speaker 1: of all, this island, it's isolated. Not many people go there,
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  Speaker 1: so tell us what this island is like.
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  Speaker 2: It just looks like nowhere else I'd ever been. There's
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  Speaker 2: very little infrastructure on the island, and visitors camp their
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  Speaker 2: way across it, which I really loved. And many of
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  Speaker 2: the plants look totally surreal, like the bottle trees that
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  Speaker 2: jut out of the side of cliffs and the frankensense
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  Speaker 2: trees that have these wild, gnarled lis, and then of
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  Speaker 2: course you have the dragon's blood trees. On top of
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  Speaker 2: all that, you just get these incredible varied landscapes. There's
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  Speaker 2: a network of caves that snake through the island for
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  Speaker 2: several miles. There's massive dunes that drop right into the ocean.
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  Speaker 2: And my favorite place was the Waddies, which have these
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  Speaker 2: natural freshwater pools. I swim in one that was longer
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  Speaker 2: than an Olympic pool and it had this deep canyon
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  Speaker 2: running beneath it.
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  Speaker 3: It was the highlight of the trip.
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  Speaker 1: And you say that these plants have distinctive looks. The
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  Speaker 1: Dragon's Blood tree has a pretty distinctive look.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's really the emblem of Zukotra. It's on
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  Speaker 2: the currency. It's what draws tourists into the island, and
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  Speaker 2: it just looks like something out of a Doctor Seuss book.
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  Speaker 2: It has this umbrella shaped canopy and when you cut
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  Speaker 2: the bark, it bleeds a red sap, which is where
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  Speaker 2: it gets its name from, and that resin has been
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  Speaker 2: used for centuries for things like cosmetic and medicines and dies.
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  Speaker 2: The trees also play a crucial role in the ecosystem.
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  Speaker 2: The canopy captures moisture from fog and channels it into
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  Speaker 2: the soil. Which helps other plants survive, and that's becoming
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  Speaker 2: increasingly important as rains there become less predictable with climate change.
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  Speaker 1: And how threatened is it and where are the threats
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  Speaker 1: coming from?
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  Speaker 2: So cyclones in the Arabian Sea have become increasingly intense
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  Speaker 2: and frequent, and Sakotra has been hit repeatedly over the
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  Speaker 2: last decade with the most intense cyclones on record, and
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  Speaker 2: that's uprooted thousands of these dragons blood trees, some of
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  Speaker 2: which were over five hundred years old. Climate models all
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  Speaker 2: over the world forecasts that this trend will continue, especially
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  Speaker 2: as greenhouse gas emissions rise. To make matters worse, the
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  Speaker 2: trees grow incredibly slowly, at just one inch per year.
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  Speaker 2: Those invasive goats all over the island who feed on
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  Speaker 2: Dragon's blood saplings before they have a chance to grow back.
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  Speaker 2: And then there's the political instability. Yemen is one of
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  Speaker 2: the poorest countries in the world. It's been mired in
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  Speaker 2: conflict for years, both the civil war and now regional tensions,
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  Speaker 2: so there's very little capacity to support conservation. One security
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  Speaker 2: analyst I spoke with put it really well. He said,
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  Speaker 2: Yemen has ninety nine problems right now, addressing climate issues
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  Speaker 2: would be a luxury.
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  Speaker 1: And what is being done or what can be done
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  Speaker 1: to try to save this tree.
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  Speaker 2: It was really heartwarming to see how the locals are
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  Speaker 2: so determined to protect what they have, even with so
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  Speaker 2: few resources. I spent some time with one family, the Kaibanis,
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  Speaker 2: who run their own dragons Blood Tree nursery. They've built
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  Speaker 2: simple enclosures out of wood and wire to keep out goats,
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  Speaker 2: but the wind and the rain often break them down,
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  Speaker 2: so they're constantly having to rebuild. For them, the work
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  Speaker 2: is deeply personal. They see the trees as part of
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  Speaker 2: their family. In one of the Kabanis, I spent some
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  Speaker 2: time with Sena. She told me that watching them die
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  Speaker 2: is like losing one of your babies.
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  Speaker 1: If this tree goes extinct, what's lost what goes with it?
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  Speaker 2: The Dragon's Blood Tree helps keep a lot of other
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  Speaker 2: species alive, so without them, the island would become even
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  Speaker 2: more arid, and it could lose a lot of its
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  Speaker 2: unique biodiversity. And beyond that, the trees are central to
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  Speaker 2: the island's identity and economy, so if the trees disappear,
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  Speaker 2: so could the tourism many locals depend on. It would
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  Speaker 2: be devastating, not just symbolically but for the entire ecosystem.
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  Speaker 1: Anaikahammer's log of the Associated Press, thank you very much,
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  Speaker 1: thank you.
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  Speaker 3: For having me. No do