The first, annual Caicos Pine Awareness week will be held in December. The Department of Environment & Coastal Resources (DECR) have deemed the first week of December ‘Caicos Pine Awareness Week’, in order to celebrate our national tree and to draw attention to the plight of this unique pine species.
“Historically, Caicos pines were cut from the pine yards in North and Middle Caicos to use as Christmas trees in community tree lightings. Because of the impact of the invasive pine tortoise scale which has killed over 90% of the wild trees, this is no longer a feasible option – every single surviving Caicos pine is needed to perpetuate the species. This year for the first time, we are celebrating the National Tree and traditional Christmas tree with an honorific week of awareness and celebration,” said B Naqqi Manco, Caicos Pine Recovery Project Manager and DECR Terrestrial Ecologist.
On the 3rd of December families, residents and visitors are all invited to a guided tour of the National Tree ramble, located in the Middle Caicos pine yard. The tour, led by Mr Manco, will start at 10am. Refreshments will be enjoyed afterwards, at the Conch Bar Community Centre. If you can’t make it to the trail, be sure not to miss the lighting of the Caicos Pine ‘Christmas’ Tree, that evening at beginning at 6 PM at the DECR & Agriculture Office Garden (Rest House) in Kew, North Caicos.
Provo Primary will be assisting the DECR and the National Museum with a Caicos Pine Tree planting, on Monday, 5 December. The national tree is exhibited at the indigenous garden, at the National Museum’s Heritage House, in the Village at Grace Bay.
“The Caicos Pine has been threatened by an invasive insect pest and Climate Change for a number of years; it has been the DECR’s aim to combat this unfortunate problem and we hope that education and awareness will guide us as we strive to safeguard our national tree,” explained Dr John Claydon, DECR Director.
The Caicos Pine Recovery Project (CPRP) was launched in 2008 and have been a long term collaboration between TCI partners and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (RBG Kew) in the UK. The current nursery is located in the government farm at Kew in North Caicos and holds more than 300 pines grown from seed collected locally. The Caicos pine, Pinus caribaea var. bahamensis, is endemic to the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) and the Bahamas, where it is the dominant species in the pine forest ecosystem. In TCI, it grows only in the islands of Middle Caicos, North Caicos and Pine Cay. Here this pine has been under threat of extinction in the past decade, because of a severe infestation by the non-native and pine-specific pine tortoise scale insect Toumeyella parvicornis. This scale insect has killed the majority of pines in TCI devastating the local pine yards in the past 10 years and few live healthy trees can be seen nowadays. The Caicos pine is now listed in the IUCN red list of threatened species as Vulnerable.
