Times of the Islands Spring 2020

green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
Since 2008 the Caicos Pine Recovery Project has
been striving to save the species and help restore its
ecosystem. The team members — researchers, conservationists,
technicians and volunteers from numerous
government agencies, NGOs and institutions — all understood
that their efforts may not yield appreciable or even
visible results during their lifetimes.
Trees work on a different time scale than humans
— they don’t care that we only live a handful of decades
when their lifetimes span centuries. It takes a certain
naïve and somewhat dismal optimism to dedicate one’s
life to saving trees and the ecosystems they support,
along with an acceptance that one really doesn’t have
enough time to carry one’s work to completion because
human mortality will eventually interfere.
A few of those committing their time to Caicos pine
recovery remember the tall, shady forests of pine strewn
across the rocky plains on the southern rock flats of
Middle and North Caicos, a broad band of fragrant forest
sandwiched between the broadleaf thicket and the
mangrove swamps. None of them imagined they would
be there to see the forest return to that sort of glory.
And yet they drudged on: Collecting and sowing seeds,
tending a nursery, cultivating the unique symbiotic fungi
that live on the pines’ roots, cleaning pine needles of
pests, researching the genetics and chemistry and stress
and symbioses of the pines and maintaining the essential
element of fire in their habitat.
Pine yard, surprisingly, is a forest that needs to burn
— it is fire-dependent, and exclusion of fire for too long
Top right: In May 2012, there were very few pine trees in Burn Plot 2, and none were strong enough to reproduce.
Above: In December 2019, the same Burn Plot 2 hosts several dozen healthy, robust Caicos pine trees that have reached reproductive age and
strength. Hundreds more grow in surrounding burn plots.
Times of the Islands Spring 2020 39