Bonny's Travels and Travails: Rainforest walks: 1) Reflections on death and destruction in 1963 Tabago

On Monday 11th March [my Granddaugter Mabel's, 4th Birthday] Mick and I teamed up with our French neighbours, Damien and Fanny and their 5 year old boy Ananda and hired a car for the day so we could explore some of the island's rainforest.

We all undertook one trek of about 7 kilometres through pretty dense forest and up and down some serious inclines. The others, with Ananda, also undertook a second shorter trek of a couple of kilometres, whilst I went off in the car in search of an internet connection so that I could wish Mabel a Happy Birthday. Ananda didn't falter once the whole day and walked every step of the way....

Tabago's rainforest has, amazingly, been protected since the late 18th Century....

"It was established on April 13th, 1776 by an ordinance which states in part, that the reserve is "for the purpose of attracting frequent showers of rain upon which the fertility of lands in these climates doth entirely depend." The passage of the ordinance is attributed to Soame Jenyns, a member of the British parliament whose main responsibilities were trade and plantation." [UNESCO https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5646/]

On reading the above, I feared that futher investigation would reveal that the Rt. Hon. Mr Jenyns' intervention was not on alturistic grounds, but rather, was to sustain the island's coco plantations, in which, I assumed, the gentleman had a significant pecuniary interest.

I found no evidence of such, however, and so must give him the benefit of the doubt as to his motives. It must also, therefore, be acknowledged, that whatever his reasons, the Rt. Hon Mr Jenyns' intervention did a great service to the island. It ensured the survival of its primary rainforest for almost 200 years, until, in 1963, Flora, a category 3 Hurricane with winds of 120 mph, caused massive destruction to lives, property and crops right across the island. It also decimated 75% of its rain forest. [University of the West Indies https://www.uwi.edu/ekacdm/node/159]

Tabago must have been particularly unlucky on that fateful day of 30th September 1963, because Hurricanes rarely visit this far south in the Carribbean. Thankfully the island hasn't seen anything like it since. Her big sister and neighbouring island, Trinidad, 'only' experienced winds of severe gale force. Bad enough, but not devastating.

After being in the forest for a few hours I began to comprehend something of the magnitude of the events of that day and of nature's recuperative powers that have been at work ever since.

I noticed that the vast majority of the trees (perhaps Rosewood trees, but I have spent ages trying to ID them without success) looked like 99% of the trees in this photo....

However, if you look closely you'll notice one in the centre at mid distance, that's diffent. A close up view shows why....

It's root structure, compared with the others surrounding it, is massive. It's the same type of tree but it's much older.

Then I took a closer look at the numerous small saplings of only a few inches in height around my feet.....

Their leafs are the same shape as those in the canopy over my head......

In addition to the numerous saplings, I also noticed that the forrest floor comprised vast amounts of dead leaf/other plant matter, which, when undisturbed, clearly leads to a most fertile environment.

So here's what I surmised ....

Prior to 1963, the rainforest was comprised largely of trees at least as big as the one pictured above. Then, Hurricane Flora made her tumultuous landfall, tearing down the mature trees and scattering their seeds over the forest floor. Over the subsequent 50 years, those seeds have grown slowly into the semi mature trees I am looking at today. Occasionally, young trees survived the mayhem as mature trees came chrashing down around them and these have now grown into the few fully mature trees scattered around today's emergent rainforest, through which I was now walking.

My thoughts then wandered even further back in time and I realised that this cycle must have repeated itself many times over milenea and that if it weren't for an obscure eighteenth century English politician, of only modest reputation, hardly any one would know that Tabago ever had a rainforest!

More scenes from the rainforest: