In praise of fat, old trees
Wide, awkward baobab trees blend into the cityscape of Dakar, the busy capital of Senegal, almost without notice.
Drivers wash a fleet of taxis parked beneath one giant tree near a freeway on-ramp. Rusting cars with open hoods are parked in a mechanic’s shop under the shade of another.
Fat baobabs, some more than half a millennium old, have endured across Senegal, passed over for lumber largely because their wood is too brittle and spongy for use in furniture. Baobab leaves are mixed with couscous and eaten, the trees’ bark stripped to make rope, their fruit and seeds used for drinks and oils.
Something else has helped preserve these giants: they are beloved.
“This,” said Adama Dieme, craning his neck to look up at the spread of branches of the baobab on his block, “is the pride of the neighbourhood.”
But baobabs, like many of the region’s trees, are in jeopardy, threatened by the same forces upending numerous facets of society — climate change, urbanization and population growth.
West Africa has lost much of the natural resources once tied so closely to its cultural identity. Poaching has stolen most of its wildlife; lions, giraffes and desert elephants are sorely endangered.
Huge swaths of forest are being razed to clear space for palm oil and cocoa plantations.
Arecent study said climate change might be blamed for the deaths of some of Africa’s oldest and biggest baobabs. In Senegal, local researchers estimate the nation has lost half its baobabs in the past 50 years to drought and development.
One of the biggest developments in the country is outside Dakar, where Senegal’s president is building an entirely new city, in the middle of a baobab forest. Officials have pledged to replant any trees they raze.
In Senegal, an image of a baobab is on the presidential seal. Baobabs are painted on the sides of buildings and on billboards. A fancy seaside hotel is named after them. So is a famous wrestler.
One baobab, that locals say is 850 years old with a 100-foot circumference trunk, is a tourist attraction. You can sleep in a baobab tree house hotel or ride a zip line course from baobab to baobab.
Senegal has few rivers and no mountains, so baobabs sprout from the scrubby landscape as majestic waypoints. Throughout history, entire communities were constructed around these trees.
In towns and villages that dot the countryside, each community has its own tradition entwined with its local baobab.
On a recent morning, Aminita Ba, 72, stood tending goats in the middle of a wide field in rural Samba Dia that was punctuated by a single, towering baobab.
When Ba arrived on the farm 50 years ago, she built her small house near the tree.
“I’m very proud of this baobab,” she said. “From far away you can see this big tree, and next to this big tree is a home, and it’s my home.”