Africa is on the front lines of climate change, and the baobab (adansonia digitata) - one of the world’s oldest and most beloved trees - is a species under threat (Figure 1). Baobabs are deciduous tropical fruit trees with a natural distribution across sub-Saharan Africa and a broad ecological tolerance, which is an important trait given the harsh and arid climate conditions of the African Sahel (Buchmann et. al. 2010). They not only thrive in a variety of soils including sandy to poorly drained clay, but also can withstand high temperatures and low rainfall due to a thick, resistant bark (Figure 2) and a trunk that absorbs water in the wet season and contracts in the dry season (Owen 1970). With numerous baobabs radiocarbon dated to 2,000 years of age and circumferences over thirty meters, the baobab is the largest and longest living angiosperm tree in the world (Wickens and Lowe 2008). Baobabs are not unlike the saguaro cactus of Arizona’s Sonoran Desert given their capacity for adaptation, but also due to their cultural connections to resource-dependent communities.
Known as the “upside down tree” because its upper structure resembles roots, the baobab is so diverse that it boasts over 300 medicinal, economic, and cultural uses (Gustad et. al. 2004; Sanchez and Haq 2011). Yet the survival of the species - often called the “sentinel of the Sahel”- has been derailed by climate change, urbanization, population growth, and a new international market demand for baobab fruits (Figure 3). Since 2004, four of the oldest thirteen baobabs in Africa have perished due to climate change, and four more have been decimated to the point of imminent loss (Buchmann et. al. 2010). That these iconic trees are under threat challenges not only local food and medicinal pathways in the region, but also the everyday micro-spaces in which West African communities conduct their lives and livelihoods. The baobab’s present status is not trivial; rather, it serves as a bellwether demonstrating some of the environmental challenges facing Africa today and highlights the critical role of creating solutions involving those communities best poised to defend it.
This essay, based on results of six weeks of fieldwork in Senegal in 2021, highlights: 1) the cultural, spiritual, spatial, and economic values that locals assign to baobab (adansonia digitata); 2) the root political-ecological causes of baobab disturbance in West Africa; and 3) the strategies that rural communities have employed in response to increased forest lost. The West African Research Center in Dakar was instrumental in providing key contacts, enabling the team to conduct fieldwork in Saint Louis, Saloum, Dakar, and Ziguinchor. This access, as well as our contacts in the region, helped us to determine: 1) the location of longstanding baobab forests in each of the three study locations; 2) existing threats to individual trees in Senegal; 2) the medicinal, spatial, environmental and nutritional values of adansonia digitata in rural villages; and 4) to uncover local adaptations to species disturbance including plans to assign protective park status to baobab forests for conservation. While there is a growing body of literature on baobab deforestation and denigration, there has been scant research conducted on the ways in which subsistence groups are impacted by these losses in West Africa (Dhillion and Gustad 2004; Gebauer et. al. 2002; Owen 1970; Rashford 1987). Our field team interviewed nearly four dozen community members in the three study sites in order meet the research objectives outlined above (Figure 4). We argue that this work contributes to a subject that has been understudied to date: the role of baobabs as a cultural, economic, environmental, and spiritual resource in Senegal and how these forest dependent communities have responded to and resisted environmental changes.
While baobabs are found in seven African states, Senegal provides an ideal research setting for this study given the importance of the species throughout both indigenous and colonial history. The scientific name adansonia in fact dates back to the French explorer, Michel Adanson, a botanist who first observed a baobab specimen on the island of Sor, Senegal in 1749. Nearby, on Iles des Madeleines, Adanson noted a second baobab measuring twelve feet in diameter which bore the carvings of notable mariners, including both Henry the Navigator (1444) and Andre Thevet (1555). In his journals, Adanson described how he consumed baobab juice twice per day in order to “maintain his health” and that the species was "probably the most useful tree in all” (Sanchez and Haq 2011). The more colloquial term for the species, baobab, is believed to originate from the Arabic “bu hibab”, meaning fruit with several seeds (Figure 5). Yet these trees also go by other locally important names including guy in Wolof, boki in Pulaar, baak in Sereer, sito in Mandinka. Indigenous Africans and French explorers would use baobabs as geographic markers during their travels because of the way in which these massive trees stand sentinel on the Senegambian landscape.
While Adanson and other French botanists would publish notable papers on the properties of baobabs, the tree’s importance had already been acknowledged by West African communities prior to France’s incursion into the region. Such cultural appreciation of the baobab continues into the present day; the tree is now the national symbol of Senegal, emblazoned upon the state’s flag and painted on local storefronts, though this collective admiration is historically rooted more in pragmatism than nationalism. One example is the functional way in which baobab trees served as natural architectural spaces in West Africa. They were employed as tombs for ceremonial griots - the musical keepers of historical knowledge - until President Senghor eventually banned this practice in the 1970s. Given the hollowed-out structure of many trees (Figure 6), they were also utilized as makeshift prisons in small communities, and in sites such as Kaolock, they served as tiny markets or stores. Typically, when a tree is hollow, the fissure is the result of fungal decay, fire or animal damage, or wood removal for local purposes, but that is not the case with the baobab. When most tree species are cored, the oldest portion is adjacent to the hollow and the youngest, beneath the existing bark. But with baobabs, the newest wood is located on both the outside of the tree and adjacent to the hollow center. These inner cavities are in fact natural empty spaces between fused stems disposed in a closed ring-shaped structure called “false cavities”. In short, West African communities took advantage of these natural architectural quarters for a variety of practical purposes.
Because of the shade that baobabs offer amidst the hot tropical landscape, trees also serve as natural gathering spots for community meetings, religious ceremonies, and rural markets. In the village of Kahone, just outside Kaolack, the shade under one large baobab is the site of a major sheep market. In Senegal livestock plays a particularly important role during Tabaski, a Muslim holy day which honors the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismael as an act of obedience. Hundreds of sheep can be found near the largest baobab in Kahone, and people congregate not only to purchase these animals for Tabaski festivities but to host important village meetings. These giant trees also represent the center of cultural life in small villages of Casamance, where they feature prominently in African oral stories of the rural south. Senegal possesses few rivers and no mountains, and thus baobabs sprout prominently from the scrubby landscape. Throughout history entire villages and communities have been constructed around these massive trees and groves. They are, quite simply, the pride of the neighborhood.
One of the largest baobab specimens in Senegal can be found in Fatick, where we witness people seated at its roots, preparing attaya, a drink made from Chinese gunpowder green tea, mint and sugar, and brewed in a kettle in three stages over hot coals. People drink and share the news while children use the roots of the baobab as a makeshift play structure. Later that day, a recently betrothed couple walks several times around the trunk of the baobab in a kind of local, hybrid religious tradition. Some 94% of Senegal’s population is Muslim, 4% is Christian, and not unlike in other African states traditional religions are also regularly practiced and combined with other faiths. The traditional religion of the Sereer people of Senegal is rooted in an extreme reverence for the natural world, is featured in their origin stories, and respect for the baobab tree is one of many religious tenets in this region (Figure 7). In both Senegal and Zambia it is believed that the baobab started its life as a creeper, which engulfs and strangles an ordinary tree with its tentacles, turning its victim into a baobab (Wickens and Lowe 2008).
In addition to its physical importance the baobab also plays a critical nutritional, medicinal, and spiritual role in Senegal. In Ziguinchor, for example, locals explain how baobab leaves are employed as a major source of vitamins B1 and B2 and iron, with ranges of the latter as high as 26.39mg/100 grams depending on the age of the tree. In a nation where few communities have access to animal-based (heme) iron other than fish, these heme-rich food sources form a mainstay of village food systems (Hyacinthe et. al 2015). Also high in vitamin C, calcium, and magnesium, baobabs can be ground into a powder, then mixed into smoothies or sprinkled on porridge (Figure 8).
Herders in the north, where Senegal intersects the African Sahel, shared how they mix baobab powder with grains to make gruel, creating a portable and nutritious food for long distance travel. Senegalese healers also utilize portions of the baobab to treat liver disease or even malaria in rural villages of Casamance. This non-traditional form of medicine may be used independently or in conjunction with Western-style pharmaceuticals. In Saint Louis, goblets are made from the baobab’s empty fruit shell, bark is pounded to make fishing rope or cork, and in some cases, even flattened to make roof tiles. And, while the trees themselves are deemed sacred, the baobab seeds also contain religious associations; village leaders in Saloum, for example, explain how slaves shipped from West Africa in the eighteenth century often wore necklaces of baobab seeds for luck and to remind them of home. These adornments are not unlike the leather gris-gris or amulets worn by Senegalese Sufis to protect them from bad spirits or things that can cause harm. And while the architectural, nutritional, medicinal, and spiritual roles of the baobab have changed through time, the species remains an important mainstay of the economy and local culture.
Our fieldwork also explored the ways in which Senegalese baobabs are facing the same political-economic threats as in other African states where the species is endemic. While baobabs have endured for generations as spiritual symbols across rural Senegal, climate change, development, and population growth have led to inevitable forest losses. Known as the camels of the plant world, baobabs can store up to 100,000 liters of water in their wide trunks, enabling them to survive through repeated dry seasons (Ross 2008). But because West Africa is disproportionately affected by decline in rainfall due to climate change, both human and animal communities have suffered in response. By one estimate Senegal has lost 50% of its baobab trees in the past 50 years due to climate-induced drought; locals told us how the rainy season now commences later than usual in southern communities such as Casamance (Sidibe and Williams 2002). Sadly, the largest and oldest trees are more sensitive to changing climatic conditions because of their sizable dimensions (Figure 9). Where large baobabs have collapsed, the water content has been at 40%, in contrast to 79% for healthy baobabs (Newer 2018).
But while global climate change is a major culprit, the future of the baobab is also threatened by Senegal’s own homespun, urban development initiatives. In the metropolis of Dakar, many baobabs blend in seamlessly with the urban landscape. Cars congregate in lots around the trunk of 1500 year old specimens, etched with carved graffiti initials written in Wolof script. While cutting such baobab trees has long been both illegal and taboo, the state has made exceptions for certain large-scale developments like Diamniadio, a community of approximately 12,300 people that sits 30 kilometers from Dakar.
One of Senegal’s largest development projects, Diamniadio, is being designed to reduce urban congestion in nearby Dakar and stimulate the economy through the construction of homes, roads, businesses, hotels, and a new post-secondary institution, Amadou-Mahtar-M'bow University. To accomplish this, the existing baobab forest has been razed. Some trees have been selectively cut, while others were torched with gasoline to make way for the new international airport, Blaise Diagne. The press has focused squarely on Senegal’s construction of the ‘futuristic’ city of Diamniadio and the way in which specific hotel designs are inspired by the natural world. The irony is that those iconic natural baobabs, some thousands of years old, are now gone, not unlike suburban communities in America whose streets and cul-de-sacs are named after trees that have long vanished. In interviews some locals “lamented the loss” of these majestic baobabs, labeling them the ‘pride of the neighborhood’, while others mentioned the need for ‘affordable housing’ for growing urban populations. At present there are architectural designs for a luxury, baobab themed hotel, which will be cost prohibitive for citizens living at or below the poverty line (Figure 10).
One other key threat to the survival of Senegal’s adansonia digitata is related to the global demand for baobab as a global superfood. According to the African Baobab Alliance - an industry group - exports of the fruit rose from 50 tonnes in 2013 to 450 tonnes in 2015, and with a projected 5000 tonnes by 2025, which equates to roughly 500 shipping containers a year (Hyacinthe et. al. 2015). This trend has made baobabs a $400 million industry. This transformation that has brought in much needed revenue to African farmers, but also threatens the long-term sustainability of baobabs. Baobab des Saveurs, a small company with buyers in Australia and Canada pays Dieuhiou up to 10,000 CFA francs ($18) per sack, more than double what he received from local middlemen a few years ago. Business for baobabs is at its peak in the context of the superfood craze, with the high demand originating in the United States and Europe (Zimbia et. al. 2015). Until recently baobab trees were tapped primarily for local use but a small network of producers and suppliers in Senegal have pushed the fruit’s profile abroad. This raises questions about long-term sustainability of baobab harvesting because unlike coffee or cocoa plants grown in West Africa, the baobab is not a plantation crop. The tree takes decades to mature, so farmers must rely solely upon existing specimens which are in finite supply across the tropical and semi-arid belt that crosses Senegal. Thus, while some local communities are able to supplement incomes with baobab export income at present, we see evidence that this renewable resource is under threat both by global economic and climatic forces (Figure 11).
Despite the ways in which political-economic forces have contributed to the destruction of baobabs, local communities in Senegal continue to serve as fierce defenders of these sacred species of the Sahel given the important role of baobabs in the construction and maintenance of village settlements over time. To witness a towering baobab standing sentinel in a small village in Casamance is to understand just how vital the species has been in forming a collective community identity dating back generations. Ross (2008) outlines how baobabs “actualized notions of the community’s foundation-creation, duration-continuity and harmony-order, in both the cosmic and temporal realms” in Senegal. Kings could be crowned beneath a tree, parley with envoys beneath another, and administer justice beneath a third. This process included coronation trees, constitution trees, tree altars and tree cemeteries, and, most importantly, palaver trees (pénc in Wolof), species that mark the central public squares of polities. Many of these historic trees still stand today and, at last count, sixteen of them have been classified as historic monuments by the Senegalese Ministry of Culture. These ‘arboreal monuments’ are a both historically significant and a powerful symbol of hope for the survival of the species, especially in rural communities, where villages have not yet forgotten the role that baobabs played in historic times. Moreover, many of these protections also have secondary safeguards because some trees are located within conservation protected areas, such as the Sine-Saloum Delta, which is both a Senegalese National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Figure 12a and 12b).
In addition to national protections, one other mechanism to preserve baobab forests focuses on the importance of conservation through utilization. Because many locals rely upon the bark, leaves, and fruit of the baobabs, Senegalese communities recognize that cultural survival is tied to species integrity. Thus, many locals described the importance of focusing on conservation rather than preservation because the former allows resource-dependent communities to continue sustainable harvests over the long term. In short, these keepers of the forests have much at stake in the battle to protect baobab forest groves, not only for economic reasons, but also for the key spiritual and cultural reasons outlined in this essay. Villagers possess traditional indigenous knowledge about baobab forests, know best how to regulate access, and are ultimately best poised to defend the species and its survival (Figure 13).