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Soon the dragon’s blood trees are only going to be where goats can’t reach.” Storms wreak havoc “Here there are goats everywhere,” says Ali, “and they eat the young trees before they have a chance. “They can reach thousands of years old, but it’s hard to get the young ones to grow.”Īn already fragile ecosystem faces an added problem: invasive species. “These trees grow so slowly,” says Sami Ali, a tour guide and biodiversity student. From a distance, great forests of dragon’s blood trees stretch toward the granite mountains beyond-but their abundance is misleading. The Diksam Plateau is one such designated area, sweeping across the center of the island and encompassing deep, winding limestone gorges.
#Blood island full#
The vulnerability of species like the dragon’s blood tree has led to high levels of environmental protection on Socotra including, in 2008, full recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, covering 75 percent of the land mass. In a sense the tree has shielded the island itself. The shade never goes away all day long, because of the shape.” “The tree is the most important thing on the island,” says Mohammed, indicating a more visceral connection. It’s also used to paint clay and pottery and as nail varnish and makeup. Some are medicinal-it’s said that after childbirth, a woman should mix the resin with water and drink it down. He looks after the nearby dragon’s blood trees, and once or twice a year he harvests their resin. His extended family, which now numbers nineteen, live in a small community in the center of the island, far from the coast and surrounded by rich, fertile soil. Mohammed Abdullah has known the trees his whole life. The trunk is thick and gnarled but, when sliced open, it bleeds a resin of deep crimson the blood, perhaps, of the injured dragon. These skyward-facing leaves collect condensation from the mists that roll along the clifftops and high plateaus of the interior. It’s an odd and alien-looking tree, with thick, knotted branches sprawling out to form an umbrella-shaped covering.
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One version of the local legend surrounding its origin says it grew from the blood of two brothers fighting to the death another that it was created from the blood of a dragon that was injured fighting an elephant. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Īnother popular export was what is now the flagship species of the island: the dragon’s blood tree. Look how beautiful it is, and how much there is to eat. “This place is a paradise,” he says, as if stating a self-evident fact. He spends the daylight hours wandering the shoreline with homemade fishing nets, then drying and organizing-and eating-the wide variety of his catch. “We argue over what to watch on television,” he complains. His wife and six children live there, and he goes back each evening. Now he also has a house in the nearby town. His mother was born in this cave, and he too was raised in it. He calls himself Abdullah the Caveman, and that’s partially true. “I do have a sweater,” he says, “but I don’t like it. Around his waist is a hand-woven orange fouta-the wrap-around male skirt that is traditional for many Yemeni men.
![blood island blood island](https://s6.dpic.me/02338/ig10jrlmqquy_o/island_of_blood_1982.jpg)
Abdullah Aliyu paces slowly up and down along the triangular mouth of the cave.