It is often said that fate works in mysterious ways. Deep within the Congo Basin in central Africa, the world’s second largest rainforest, this statement proves to be very true, but it’s also a giant pile of poop.
The fates of an ebony tree, an endangered mammal, a community in Cameroon, and a major guitar manufacturer in the United States are all inextricably intertwined. But this future is not gleaned from tea leaves or stars, but gleaned from a new kind of divination tool: elephant dung.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the continental population of African forest elephants has declined by an estimated 80% over the past 30 years due to habitat loss and, importantly, the illegal ivory trade, and they are classified as near-extinct in the wild.
Their decline could have devastating implications for the survival of ebony trees across the region, after camera capture and scat analysis revealed in unprecedented light that elephants play a key role in seed dispersal and germination.
Herds can feed on the fruit of ebony trees and carry the seeds for miles before defecating on the forest floor, increasing their dispersal range while reducing the risk of inbreeding. Another benefit is that it deters rodents from eating seeds wrapped in feces.
A nine-year study led by UCLA’s Congo Basin Institute (CBI) found that 68% fewer ebony saplings are found in elephant-free forest areas, leading to the conclusion that, to paraphrase a Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder lyric, the fates of ebony and ivory are perfectly aligned.
“The results are very frightening,” CBI research assistant Eric Ongeen told CNN.
“Initially, we thought that (ebony) seeds could probably be dispersed by all kinds of animals. We expected them to reproduce naturally… But if the elephants were gone, we should expect a loss of ebony species, or extinction.”
The study, largely funded by California’s Taylor Guitars, raised questions. Why would a music maker spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on scientific research some 8,000 miles around the world?
The answer lies in ebony’s dark, often jet-black heartwood. Its dense, durable, smooth mirror finish has been used for years on guitar bridges and fingerboards. It helped propel El Cajon-based Taylor Guitars, founded in 1974 by Bob Taylor and Kurt Listog, to global success, with Taylor Swift and Jason Mraz also strumming its work.
Taylor, co-owner of the Crericum ebony factory in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, was further troubled by the realization that the vital resource was becoming increasingly difficult to find.
Ebony’s commercial value meant that trees throughout the approximately 3.7 million square kilometers (approximately 1.4 million square miles) of the basin were primarily targeted for logging among some of the region’s 80 million people.
“Most of the places where ebony was being harvested have run out of supply,” Matthew LeBreton, director of the Crelicum plant, told CNN.
For Taylor, the subsequent decision to fund research was summed up in a four-word mantra that became a business principle. It was called “Investing in the inevitable.”
“You wake up one day and you’re like, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to last forever,'” Taylor told CNN.
“I don’t like to throw around the word sustainable, but I would say this is not sustainable. We’re going to run out. So we have to do something… It’s inevitable that we’re going to run out of trees, so I’m going to invest in reforestation.”
What began as a simple fact-finding mission in 2016 has since transformed into a CBI-led collaboration called the Ebony Project, a partnership of businesses, communities and scientists working to ensure the long-term prosperity of ebony trees.
This effort builds on one of the project’s early research findings: ebony trees don’t grow quickly. Because seedlings take up to 100 years to fully mature, CBI devised a plan to distribute seeds to the indigenous Baka community, which shares the basin’s forests with elephants.
“To protect the Congo Basin ecosystem, we should not be ordering protection or putting police officers in front of each tree,” CBI researcher Zak Chaunjoo told CNN.
“We have to involve the local population and show them what interest they have in this domestication, because it meets their needs.”
Chounjoo’s assessment touches on difficult issues. How do you convince people to plant a tree seed that will never sit down?
To sweeten the deal, Baka communities were offered ownership of planted ebony trees, seeds for fairly fast-growing fruit and medicinal tree species such as avocados and mangoes, and access to goods that could be eaten, used, and sold in the short term.
There were other, more intangible benefits as well. Local people learn agricultural techniques at the nursery, creating jobs and transferable skills that are already benefiting the 13 partner communities the Ebony Project has worked with.
“It has completely changed our lives,” Samuel Bambo Menpong, a farmer from the Baka indigenous village of Biforon, on the edge of the Dja game reserve in the basin, told CNN.
“I gained knowledge that I didn’t have, and I’m also going to train other people elsewhere so I can come back with the benefits.”
“That money will go to your descendants,” Menpon said. The first ebony tree planted on his 2.5 hectare property is now seven years old. “My children, my grandchildren. They are the ones who will benefit,” he added.
The Ebony Project is celebrating its 10th anniversary and has approximately 50,000 ebony trees planted to its name, along with more than 34,000 fruit trees. Taylor doesn’t plan on stopping there.
“I hope that 10 years from now, we’ll probably be at the one million tree goal,” he said.
“This is a demonstration project like any other project. There could be bigger, better, smarter, faster, wealthier people[taking on similar projects]…I just want to leave the next generation with more options than we had.”
That’s the spirit that applies to Menpon.
“We don’t want to destroy any more forests at the same time,” he said.
“We want to eat (harvest) the forest kindly. When our moment passes, our children and future great-grandchildren will have the same forest.”
