Living in the Community – Kuru Hills – The Ascent

We parked the car under some shady trees in the village of Moria which, although it was probably not known to Tolkien, did have a sort of Middle Earth air about it (acknowledged it was not subterranean).  It made Fintonia look like a metropolis.  It was a group of a hundred or so huts in amongst the trees; there was no real centre.  Where the road stopped was at the edge of the village and to reach our path up in to the hills we had to navigate through a series of people’s backyards.  It was already mid morning and many villagers were in their fields or away on errands.  A few young mothers were cleaning up their houses, sitting chatting in the shade of their compounds.  A couple of very old men were sat in wooden chairs on their porches, mostly oblivious to the world around them and certainly to this foreign party passing through.

The Ascent   – and Kofi’s colourful shirts

We started to climb through some fields behind the village but as the gradient got steeper the cultivation stopped and we were in the usual scrubby woodland of all this area.  It was a glorious sunny day and the climb was hard work for all of us.  We would get glimpses of the escarpment ahead and I wondered just where this path made the ascent to get us to the top.  These mesas are common in this part of the world.  The Guinea Highlands are a series of plateaus in the interior of west Africa and form a continuous belt separated from the coastal lands by almost sheer cliffs.  In the coastal plain itself there are vestigial pieces of these highlands standing proud above the plain.  The Kuru Hills is an example of this.  On a map it appears like a pick axe with a swollen head at the northern end and a long shaft heading southwards.  We were climbing the handle.  Our purpose in exerting so much energy was to see what was on top of these mesas.  Being elevated, they had markedly different vegetation from the rest of the region.  Just what that vegetation looked like was difficult to determine from the satellite imagery.  All we saw was more green colours reflecting back, and much of it uniform.  That told us that much of the area had much higher rainfall than the surrounds which may have extended into the dry season, keeping the vegetation in leaf much longer but whether this was forest or grassland was difficult to spot from the imagery we had to hand.

So up we went, and the walk helped to identify layers of vegetation at different altitudes too.  From the scrub forest we passed another of the small rubber plantations.  Gray had read that the British had experimented with rubber in Sierra Leone.  It had never really caught on but these old plantations still existed.  It looked like the locals did not tap the sap here, but did use the trees for timber and fuel.  Beyond the rubber the undergrowth got very tangled and dense and we could not see far as we plodded up the steep path.  The lack of air circulation made us intolerably sweaty and overheated.  It was too much for Kofi.  I’d always been amazed how this slight, urban man from Ghana had coped with the village work out here in the most remote parts of Sierra Leone, but cope he did.  Although never looking like he was enjoying the experiences of mosquitoes and mud and scratching seeds and grasses, sweat and humidity, he never moaned, and usually had this impassive tolerant air about him.  But on this slope he was defeated.  His reasoning was he saw no reason to kill himself trying to get to the top of the hill.  He said he would head back to the village.

Living in the Community – On the road to Kuru Hills

Nevertheless, it was with renewed excitement that I woke up the next day.  We made an early start for the Kuru Hills.  Gray was out here mapping the vegetation for the whole of West Africa.  He was trying to teach various agencies in each of the country’s his techniques but still him and his colleagues had to do the bulk of the work.  I admired his techniques of interpreting the landscape and mapping the different types of vegetation and land use on the surface, and I wanted to see how he did his field work, keen to pick up some tips.

One of the national park rangers from the Kilimi-Outamba Park joined us in Fintonia and we travelled north from the village , past Sumata where we had been stranded by the fallen tree the previous year.   The road was permanently diverted round the remains of our tree and the tree itself was now overgrown.  We passed a couple of hamlets and the village of Yana, then Gray and the driver started talking about where the turn off  was.  He spotted it no problem – Gray is a supreme geographer therefore an obvious navigator.  It was only 7km to the foot of the Kuru Hills but the track was narrow and potholed and it wound up and down and round and round to take the easiest route through the knobbly terrain.  Gray was already working as we went along.  He had spotted a series of strips of vegetation that looked more uniform than most of the forest and they appeared to be along this route we were taking now.  We looked around to spot we were traversing along a narrow strip of rubber trees.  To our left the natural forest could be seen starting again only about 30m away, and about the same distance to the right we could see scrub and a view out over the plain below these foothills of the Kuru range.  It seemed that the track we were on would have been to service these trees and ship the timber back to the coast.  The villages we passed through close to the end of our journey had most probably sprung up because of the road, not vice versa.

Moria

Return to Cayman – On the Mastic Trail (1)

Often neglected in the Caribbean is the land vegetation.  The coral and the deep seas get so much attention, as do the endemic birdlife, reptiles and amphibians.  But the curious mix of land habitats are worthy of mention.  Cayman is a fairly flat island, no volcanoes here, and the pitted limestone makes it a difficult environment for any vegetation to get a grip.  Most of the natural vegetation appears to be a tangle of spiny , half dead shrubs.  The glamorous stuff is to be found in gardens where the imported bougainvilleas and the crotons colour up any backyard.

Conservationists are horrified at the amount of invasive species which have colonised the OTs.  Some, like the Casuarina trees, could not be eradicated, and many have been adopted by the islanders as loved local favourites.  Given the remote location of many islands, the native vegetation is often not as large or showy as those brought in for gardens and erosion control but there are many species out there in the scrub.  If only the scrub were not treated as wasteland; most developers have it in mind to “beautify” the island with their hotels, estates and shopping malls where they plant up the same plants out of pots that might line a highway in Miami.   This tangle of scrub to them is at best an eyesore, at worst, in need of simplifying down to grass verges and manicured monocultures.

The dry scub of many Caribbean Islands  – this one in the British Virgin Islands

Cayman’s attempt to educate the island about the true value and the need to conserve its areas of natural vegetation is centred on the Mastic Reserve.  It is one of the only true wildernesses left on Grand Cayman, distant from the heat of development in Georgetown and away from the coast too.  Bordered by mangroves to the west and the coast road round the rest of the island, the poor terrain of old coral stone, plus the lack of access to the sea, meant it was relatively untouched by humans, and fortunate for itself, largely impenetrable.  We were driven in a minibus round to the north side of the island and down a little side track where we were dropped off and waited in the still sun drenched air for our guides.  Members of the National Trust came in another vehicle and were delayed en route, so we tried to find some shade.  It was difficult – the trees are not all that tall round here and they had an open structure which at best gave a dappled shade.

Ready to start the Mastic Trail

Eventually our hosts turned up – but then spent ten minutes talking about the trail.  It was a good job we did because as soon as we started out on the footpath, it was clear that the group was going to split.  Many of the animal conservationists, the managers, the media types and GISsy people like myself were keen to have a good walk, enjoy the countryside and the key sights.  The botanists though went into field study mode.  They wanted to absorb every plant species they could find.  That meant not just the trees, but the shrubs, the herbaceous layers, the grasses, the epiphytes and parasites.  And it was not just a case of plant spotting, they had to look at the leaf, the stem, the root, the flower and fruit, maybe dissect them, discuss amongst themselves and make copious notes in their little books.

Most of us had gone a half kilometre before we realised we had left them behind.  One of the Cayman guides went back – reporting later that they had hardly passed the board which marked the start of the trail.

The Adopted Dog – Ancient markings

So it all makes perfect sense.   But back to the Caribbean.  Layou like many St Vincent towns, had a pleasant waterfront on a narrow beach; a small river flowing out in to the bay divides the town; the main road turns inland less than half way along the beach.  Like most of St Vincent’s beaches, the sand is black here.

So many of the main settlements in St Vincent are on the coast, and with the work I had done previously looking at coastal resources, I was sensitised to many of the concerns about sea level rise and climate change that could affect such settlements.  By the time this project had started, the implementation of more coastal defences were being carried out.  Although leeward sides of islands are not usually so badly affected by hurricanes as their leeward counterparts, when they do hit this side the lack of preparation and the higher density population concentrations often cause more devastation.  But also people were learning that not only general sea level rise could cause noticeable differences in the amount of sea flooding that can occur, but it exacerbates other events such as storm surge.  The results of all this thinking was starting to manifest itself in structures on the shorelines.  Here in Layou the road had been reinforced with concrete defences, but not a sea wall in the traditional sense, but a gently graded ramp with many carefully calculated holes and rough edges, all designed to take the energy out of any waves cheeky enough to come right up close to the town.

Layou

We stopped at the back of the town and took a look at the Layou Petroglyph Park.  The running theme in this story is the mixture of new perspectives and familiar sights.  Petroglyphs came under the latter category.  They appear throughout the Caribbean and I had hunted for them in St John in the US Virgin Islands, been shown them by Edsel in St Kitts on a stone next to a village school, and even helped out with excavations of a Taino village on BVI’s West End.  So the presence of these stones in St Vincent were hardly a revelation, but they were some of the better ones I had seen.  The best were set on a large stone deep in the forest; faces etched into the rock surrounded by triangular shapes, large circles and swirls.  All very primitive and appearing more like haphazard graffiti than anything formal or deep and meaningful.  If they were ancient in any way, they would be representative of our human species development of culture and crafting, but since they have been put at no more than 1800 years old, we know many other civilisations were  at the same time drawing, writing and creating much more intricate artwork than these.  But it does show the last vestiges of a pre-Columbus civilisation that existed in these islands.  Which particular tribe these carvings relate to is still up for debate – one which will probably never resolved.  Not only is there the simple question of whether they are the stereotypically  ferocious Carib or the passive Arawak who drew these, but a more complicated question as to whether those two extremes were fuzzied by many interactions – rape, enslaving, intermarriage being three of the most obvious.  It is not certain what the characteristics of populations that lived in St Vincent were.  Although a few people with Carib blood do still live in St Vincent, mainly in the north eastern quadrant,  even these are mixed with post-Colombian immigrants from Africa and Europe.  So be the difficulties of history in the new world – the written documentation, verbal histories and evidence on the ground, used so meticulously in the old world, is scant in the Americas up to the 1700s, and what evidence there might have been was so often destroyed before any archaeologist or historian could get their hands on it.

Petroglyph

Cool valley

Nice to be in the shade

As much as the petroglyphs, the parkland in which they were situated grabbed my attention.  Again there was nothing unfamiliar in it, but having been stuck in the concrete and bustle of Kingstown for most of the last two weeks, it was a joy to be wandering in the cool under the canopy, a gentle breeze blowing down the valley, further cooled by the small stream that tinkled between the rounded volcanic rocks.  From those rocks and the assortment of leaf litter on the forest floor grew all manner of plants – big rubbery leaved ones, huge trees with buttresses, plenty of mosses and lower plants like mosses, lichens and ferns.  It was now late morning so the bird and animal life was limited, it is true, but the atmosphere in here was so relaxing.

Capturing the Diversity – Mapping the Vegetation

Kew had their own GIS section (whose members were also keen to travel to these amazing islands) so I never got a huge amount of work from these visits, but given I had helped Stedson over the years with his logging of plants, I was asked to come back to Ascension  on my own purely to look at the plant issues.   Phil had been pulled in to help Andrew with the detailed surveys.  They carved up both St Helena and Ascension Island into square blocks, and then did a comprehensive species list, not just looking for endemics but also natives and invasives, every type of high plant.  They also had to judge the abundance of each species.  I travelled out just for a week to help out on all the plant issues, and Andrew and Phil were beavering away with their surveys while I was there.  They absolutely loved it although the field work was exhausting.  They would spend several hours a day out surveying a square, not so bad if it were close to a road, but involving a long trek if it was not.  Up on Green Mountain where the vegetation was much thicker, they had subdivided the squares, and exploring each study area was made much more difficult by the steepness of slopes, wet slimy ground, and thick undergrowth to get through.  But they were out in the fresh air, doing what they loved.  And they had taken residence up at one of the cottages on Green Mountain, and they cherished the seclusion and at-oneness with nature that they got from there.

Mountain top cottage

I joined them once for one of their easier days.  They had not completed much of the north east of the island.  I had never visited this quadrant before.  Much of it is covered by a firing range still used to this day by the military and you have to check in with them to make sure it is safe to enter, and just be careful not to tread on any stray ordinance which has been left behind.  We accessed the range by driving down the road at the back of Two Boats towards NE Bay.

Close to the flagpoles which would carry the warning flags if firing was scheduled, we gathered our kit up from the back of the Land Rover and started to tromp in.  The grid square was pretty much on the road and in its centre was a low lying area surrounded by conical hills of various sizes.  The western side was connected to an area which has seen the most recent volcanic activity, less than 700 years back.  These cones, in geological terms, are fresh, and full of loosely consolidated pieces of ash and small nuggets of lava. Their conical shape is so uniform as the material sorts itself to the maximum angle that the gravel can stay together, any steeper and pieces naturally roll down till equilibrium is re-established.  One of the craters, though, has been subjected to other factors and one side of the slope has collapsed.  It has been given the name Broken Tooth given the sharp jagged edges where the collapse took place.  In between the cones are the a series of lava flows, but they are not as black and angular (or difficult to traverse) as the ones around the coast or on the large north western coastal plain.  Wash from Green Mountain behind has filled up some of the gaps with a yellowish sandy soil, which is  more easy to walk through, but there are still lots of loose stones and hard angular rocks to be careful of when you hike.

I was surprised just how much vegetation was in the grid square.  Again, probably because of Green Mountain behind, seeds have been carried down in the sediment and given the landscape a much richer flora than similar geological areas further away from the mountain.  There were plenty of Mexican Thorn here but it was not dominant.  Casuarina trees were prevalent and seemed adept at gaining a foothold on the scoria cones.  Trees were one thing, but the whole area was carpeted in herbaceous and annual plants, so many little flowers and seeds, once gaining a foothold in the rubble, forever more established.  Andrew and Phil recorded each species and where necessary, guessed the abundance.  There were still not that many species; maybe twenty frequently occurring and a few other specials.  They both rolled their eyes when they remembered the long lists they had to compile up in the mountain tops.

Andrew and Phil

In the Broken Tooth Range

Green Mountain from Broken Tooth

The invasives taking hold

Thorn trees in Broken Tooth with the Scoria Cones behind

The hidden valleys of Broken Tooth Range

It was a real pleasure to explore this part of the island with them, but unbeknownst to me , things were going wrong underfoot.  I had been wearing my heavy duty boots, with steel caps and base plates.  They were great clunking things but surprisingly comfortable from the inside.  The terrain in Ascension is unforgiving though, and although Broken Tooth was mild in comparison with the big lava flows, I managed to rip the sole from the upper.  The front became completely detached, and I gingerly flopped back to the Land Rover.  I asked around if anyone had any strong glue.  Some of the Conservation staff sucked through their teeth, but Stedson came up trumps with Araldite.  I pasted the gloopy mix and put it in a vice in his workshop.  Ten minutes later I had a single shoe again, and continue to wear it to this day.

Capturing the Diversity – Stedson’s Kingdom

Debate rages amongst conservationists about how much you should do to rebalance the amount of native species with those which have been introduced.  I don’t think anyone would like Green Mountain’s vegetation razed to the ground and replaced with a few fern plants.  The trails and recreational areas up there are too valuable to everyone as a green lung on an inhospitable tropical island. In 2005 Green Mountain was declared Ascension Island’s National Park and Stedson has been at the forefront of efforts both to increase the visitor experience, and restore the old endemic species up there.

The one and only Stedson

Stedson gave Edsel and me a tour of Green Mountain on our first trip.  There is a single track tarmac road up there, mostly as the Administrator’s residency is perched near the National Park centre.  The road rises up steeply from Two Boats, running as best it can along a ridge.  But that ridge is far too steep to take in one run and instead you navigate through a series of tortuous hairpins.  You ride through a series of climatic zones in a matter of minutes, from the Mexican Thorn Trees, the yellowboys, lovely yellow flowers which carpet the slopes, then the eucalyptus forest and finally up to the cloud forest.  The bends in the road get tighter and tighter but both Stedson and Ray pride themselves on being able to get round every one without having to reverse once.  On one particular bend near the top, the margin for error is barely a hair’s width but Stedson in particular has been up there so many times, he is a master.

The road to Green Mountain – in the Eucalyptus layer

The public car park is a moist dark patch under a little rock face, but with the key to the gate, the Conservation staff would drive a little further up into the courtyard of the Red Lion.  This building has the look of a grand pub, it has the location that a pub would envy, overlooking the west of the island, and it certainly has a pub’s name, but it was never a pub.  A farm was established here in the 1800’s and the Red Lion was where the farm workers lived.

The “Red Lion”

There is still a lot of the farm infrastructure up here, and above the “pub” and a lawn now used as a picnic site are a whole load of allotments that anyone from the island can apply to cultivate.  You can continue the drive up the mountain a little further, through an impressive tunnel in the rock, past a couple more cottages and the old barracks used by the marines that were stationed on the island for a time.  On the right are a set of old water catchments, more of them later, and then a grassy slope past some flax to the end of the track.  First time Edsel and I came up here with Stedson, the cloud had been down over Green Mountain for days, and the track was a quagmire of thick red clay. I never knew the soil could get so deep on Ascension Island. But with the four wheel drive of the Land Rover and a steady pair of hands on Stedson, we slid and slurped our way to solid ground again.

Red Lion Picnic Site

The Gardens and allotments

In the allotments

Red Lion

As far as you can drive

At this final gate was an area that Stedson had been working hard on.  Almost single handedly he had cleared the invasive vegetation away and was planting endemic ferns that he had cultivated in polytunnels back at the Red Lion.  Over the course of several years I worked with Stedson to help him document his plant specimens out in the field. He was an instinctive kind of scientist and documentation or scientific rigour were never his strong points.  But to nurture a set of plants from seeds to adults in the wild, or to identify new plants out in the field, he was unparalleled.  His achievements were first noted when in 1982 he rediscovered a plant on his native St Helena that had been thought to be extinct, the bastard gumwood.  He had an almost folksy connection with nature, which sometimes might drive the visiting scientists potty as they tried to pin down their objectives, method and findings, but for most he was highly respected, and indeed loved, member of the conservation effort in the South Atlantic region.  I spent a day working up there with him one time when I was either waiting for the RMS to St Helena or the flight home; I have done voluntary  conservation work for the Medway Towns Conservation Volunteers and the Loose Valley back home, so getting stuck in to clearing or planting was no big deal.   I helped him clear a patch and he took me round the ferns being planted – a mixture of species.  He wanted to try and recreate the “carpet of ferns” that some early visitors to Ascension had described.  It was difficult work; the undergrowth up here grew back fast and could smother the tender ferns.  The rats, rabbits and insects could get in and in the moist climate even pathogens could not be ruled out.  But gradually the patches of endemic plants were growing.

Making the Carpet of Ferns

Kit on Green Mountain