Laurens Malan is a horticultural ecologist working with the Island’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Department.  He is advising that department on the conservation of plant species and how best to improve horticultural skills and facilities.

Laurens, from South Africa, is also interested in the Millennium Forest and particularly the larger nursery facilities we are building and the plans we have for using the larger facility.  In October he visited the Forest with Rebecca Cairns-Wicks and Vince Thompson to see what has been done and advise us on the best horticultural techniques.

His visit turned out to be quite a revelation.  After discussing the new nursery and how best to use it to propagate endemic ground cover as well as trees, Laurens wanted to see the gumwoods planted a few years ago.  When we walked around the oldest parts of the reforested area a pleasant surprise awaited us.

Site of the first planting area at the millennium Forest, before planting began.

All clear ground in the oldest part of the forest have swathes of seedlings.

Rainfall since early this year has been about twice the annual average.  The entire Island is greener and areas where vegetation is normally thick and vibrant are bristling with even more life; both plants and the insects that live and feed on them.  Not unnaturally, we found the same happening over large swathes of the forest floor.  Admittedly some invasive species and the usual common weeds were doing very well but doing exceptionally well were the seedlings growing from the seeds dropped by the parent gumwood tree.

Gumwood seedlings compete successfully with a ground cover of Samphire

Why the jubilation at what is a perfectly natural occurrence?  With any reforestation project an important landmark in the development of the forest toward maturity is its ability to regenerate itself.  The extra rainfall created conditions which kick-started forest self-generation.  As Laurens pointed out, the naturally grown seedlings had longer roots and showed other signs of being hardier than their nursery grown predecessors.  The next generation of trees will be stronger and healthier than the first.

So, with nature doing all this work for us, you may wonder why we need a bigger nursery.  We still have over 500 acres to re-forest and the rainfall assisted self-generation will not happen every year.  Next year there may be a drought instead.  Also we need large stocks of hardy endemic groundcover to gradually replace the weeds, invasive creeper and shrubs.

Related Information

Millennium Forest Project Page

Donate to the Re-Forestation Fund