The cedar tree, which many people believe to be Morocco’s national treasure, is being attacked by monkeys, selfish people who engage in illegal logging, and climate change.
Approximately 134,000 hectares (330,000 acres) of the nation of North Africa are covered by the magnificent conifer Cedrus Atlantica.
Despite being less well-known than its Lebanese cousin Cedrus Libani, the Moroccan Cedar is still a potent symbol of national pride.
Large swaths of the Middle Atlas mountain range in Morocco, close to the town of Azrou, are covered in cedars.
A unique and recognizable cedar with the name Henri Gouraud after the French general who led colonial soldiers in Morocco during World War I lives on these rocky hillsides.
The region is a trekker’s paradise and is also home to sheep, goats, and Barbary macaques, indigenous primates that have had to adapt their diet due to waves of drought in recent decades.
The monkeys are known to eat vegetation, insects, and tourists’ thrown peanuts in addition to these foods.
But according to specialists, the monkeys have recently been forced to change their diets and now eat small branches that grow from cedar trees as well as chew on the bark to increase their calcium intake.
Due to water constraints that have caused deforestation, the area’s 800,000 sheep, goats, and cows have also grown more sedentary.
According to Abderrahim Derrou, the director of the nearby Ifrane national park, “water shortages aggravated by animal behaviour are leading to the withering of the cedars.”
‘This wood is gold’In the Middle Atlas, the park was established ten years ago as a component of an effort to restore the forest and safeguard its delicate environment.
Today, the area is covered in hundreds of growing, young cedar trees.
Additionally, Morocco is putting together plans to get its cedars listed as an “endangered species” and to have UNESCO recognize them as a “world heritage.”
In the meanwhile, as part of their attempts to save the forest, the authorities have established a plan to restrict the places where cattle can graze.
“Everything will vanish if the forest disappears.
The locals are fully aware of this, but the going is tough “explained a shepherd in the critically essential for the area’s ecology Ain Leuh forest.
As a cubic metre’s (35.3 cubic feet) market value is 14,000 dirhams (about 1,3000 euros, $1,475), officials are also cracking down on poachers who are hunting valuable cedar wood.
The wood has a high value even if the black market price lowers.
A forestry department official was killed in a car accident earlier this month while pursuing poachers, according to local media.
The aromatic wood is favored by cabinet makers, and the essential oil extracted from it is thought to have medical as well as aromatherapy uses.
Miloud Bouyekhf declared, “This wood is gold,” adding that he, like everyone else, respected the law and would only remove trees that have been marked for removal by the forestry department.
The woodcutter vowed to follow the regulations and entered the forest with a chainsaw, saying, “Even sawdust is useful.”
Poachers hack at trees that are hundreds of years old in the dead of night when they engage in illegal logging.
Although illegal logging harms Moroccan cedar trees, according to Abderrahim Houmy, secretary general of the High Commissioner for Water, Forests, and the Fight Against Desertification, it is little compared to the dire threat posed by climate change.
“Climate change is the real threat,” he declared, adding that if action is not taken soon to safeguard the Biblical tree, temperature increases, droughts, and flooding could be fatal for the cedar.
