Trees and Seedballs, Answer to Hargesia, Somaliland
On February 11, I received an email from Hargeisa, Somaliland. Short and simple but with a big question. “I watched your program (Somalia Dryland Ecosystem Restoration Library) on youtube. Im Osman live and work in Somaliland. Our biggest problem now is deforestation. So you can help or have any ideas, please share with us.”
Now as luck would have it, I received an email on February 10 from a friend in Puntland with an in-depth article on the situation with frankincense trees in Somaliland. Here is a link to the article.
A short synopsis is that frankincense trees in Somaliland are being unsustainably tapped and more and more of the trees are dying. Perhaps this is part of the deforestation the writer in Hargeisa was talking about. People there know how to tap frankincense trees sustainably and have done so for millennia. A renewable resource that has funded those people for thousands of years. Things are so desperate there now that people are sneaking into areas they do not have right to and making too many cuts per tree, making too deep a cuts and cutting too frequently. They, in a sense, are bleeding the trees to death for short-term gain. The study area for the article is the district of Somaliland adjacent to Puntland. There are armed military on both sides of the Somaliland/Puntland border and there are gunfights between them. These areas are controlled by clans who defend their territories. Clan warfare is still going on with revenge killings.
My advice to people in Somaliland, Puntland and Somalia is to defend their frankincense trees from overharvesting, both by outside people and by locals. These trees are your heritage and future welfare of your people. Don’t let them be killed for food now and leave future generations bereft of this important resource.
This, of course, is part of a much bigger advice. Defend the people in your areas who produce food. Local food supply is important now and may become the difference between life and death in he future. The pastoralists are the major power group in this region. Their herds of camels and other livestock are important sources of income, meat and milk. They do put food on the table. But here again, unsustainable grazing practices are destroying the resource that all the future generations need. The land should be defended against unsustainable grazing. Sustainable grazing is good and what the people know how to do. Unsustainable practices are not good and should be defended against. This cannot be legislated and enforced by central governments in these kinds of places. The councils of elders need to be in charge of this defense and judging cases.
Everywhere needs farmers, even pastoralist cultures. Unfortunately Africa is full of conflicts between pastoralists and farmers. They have worked things out satisfactorily in some places and these successes deserves more study for win/win solutions. In southern Somalia, many of the farmers are Bantu people. During the recent wars many of the bantus were killed or displaced. Not a good way to treat your farmers. Encourage and defend the farmers where you live and try to recruit more farmers from with your ranks or from elsewhere. It is stupid to treat your farmers in a bad way.
Now, it is not enough to halt the destruction of your trees, grazing lands and farmlands. You need to build them up to a good state of health so they an support people in a more comfortable and stable way of life. Ecosystem restoration is a big topic and there are many strategies and techniques depending on the land, climate, soils, rainfall and culture. The degraded arid and semi-arid lands of the Horn of Africa are not an easy fix. I am happy to give some advice to people in Somaliland, Puntland, Somalia, etc but not being on the scene they will have to mainly rely on knowledgeable people who live there or work there.
Seedballs for reforestation of frankincense trees and other kinds of trees and shrubs. Reforestation with the standard tree-planting techniques developed in the temperate zone don’t work so well in arid and semi-arid zones like most of the Horn of Africa. Seedballs is a technique which is much easier, faster, cheaper and more successful. I recommend you start seedball groups in every locality. These are people who experiment with seedball planting, keep track of their results, compare notes and build on successes. You can have regional conferences of seedball groups to share experience.
Here is a brief picture of how to make and plant seedballs.
Collect ripe seed of the species you want to grow. Make a mix of clay, soil amendments and pest repellents. One seed per seed ball can be added, or sometimes several seeds and even several different species One main species and several small supporting species like legume herbs. Usually just one tree seed per seedball. Depending on the size of the seed(s) the ball can be marble-sized, larger or smaller.
Clay is the main thing in the mix. But also can be added minerals, micro-nutrients, seaweed concentrate, microbial and fungal inoculants, nitrogen, compost, poly-absorbent gells and things like cayenne pepper, castor oil or neem that will repel birds or animals from eating the seed.
The balls are formed with moist clay and then allowed to dry out before planting.
The seedballs can simply be planted in the right niches in natural habitats. Small holes made, or the seedballs are shoved into crannies in the rock. Right habitat for each species. Frankincense trees grow in gnarly spots. The seeds germinate with the right amount of rain and off they grow. Depending on whether there is sufficient follow-up rains or natural moisture the plant can get established and have a long life (depending on the species). The critical part is the first couple years of growth. Generally we cannot water these young plants, but a water collection runnel can be made when the seed is planted to direct a little extra water to them.
If possible, obtain outside funding to pay people to collect the seeds, make the seedballs and plant them. The planting requires the most expertise and training (to choose the right habitat niches). As experience grows success rates will go up. Don’t let the funders call the shots. Local control. Utmost integrity.
I need to write a longer article on seedballs at some point. Here is one of my videos where I talk about seedballs. See minutes 7:18 to 11:02. Notice that I talk about throwing seedballs around to land on the surface. For dry places like the Horn of Africa the seeds should be carefully buried in just the right places. .
Check out a related video to this topic, our own in-depth instructional feature How To Establish Plants in the Landscape.
