Lessons From Nature: What We Can Learn from the Spiny Forest

Posted on 6 August 2015

“Plants are doing it. We should too,” said Navi, a fellow WWF volunteer, after discovering in Life Among the Thorns, a soon-to-be released WWF Madagascar publication about the majestic Spiny Forest of Southern Madagascar, that the plants in the Spiny Forest are very good at conserving water.

Baobab © WWF Madagascar / Marlies Volckaert

by Israel Bionyi Nyoh and Gregg Smith

“Plants are doing it. We should too,” said Navi, a fellow WWF volunteer, after discovering in Life Among the Thorns, a soon-to-be released WWF Madagascar publication about the majestic Spiny Forest of Southern Madagascar, that the plants in the Spiny Forest are very good at conserving water.

The landscape around the town where we volunteered, Beheloke, is all Spiny Forest. This unique habitat, which is only found in Madagascar’s south and nowhere else in the world, occurs in a region where rainfall is very scarce and plants had to adapt to survive. These adaptions mean that many of the plant species found in these forests are found nowhere else. The plants of the spiny forests provide a rich source of the island’s incredible biodiversity, but also serve as an important example of resource conservation.

There are lessons to be learned from the way the plants in the spiny forests lead their lives.

Living in a very difficult climate, which receives an average rainfall of less than 500 mm per year, the Spiny

Forest is known for its impressive water conservation. With a wide variety of succulent plants, the spiny forest can conserve water for a very long period of time. The plants do their best to store all the raindrops that fall on them.

Euphorbia © WWF Madagascar / Marlies Volckaert

A special type of spiny tree, the “Samanta” in Malagasy, is prized by the people of Beheloke. The Samanta is one of many plant species found in the Spiny Forests, of which 95% are unique to the eco-region.

The local people use the Samanta, which is known in English as the white euphorbia tree, to make all sorts of goods. Its wood is soft and easy to carve. They use it for fine arts, to build dugout canoes, and paddles. Inside the tree, there is a fine white liquid that residents use as a sticky gum to glue objects together and as fuel. The Samanta is not only useful to humans; insects eat the liquid and small snakes, birds, and spiders can be found seeking refuge among its thick branches.

After learning about the magnificent techniques of water management in the spiny forests, I thought about the amount of resources that humans waste. We try to squeeze as much from the earth as possible, but then waste large amounts of food that spoil and go into the garbage.

We can learn lessons from the environment around us. If we listen to the lessons that the Spiny Forest has to tell, we can begin to better manage our earthly resources.