Creeping through the thick cloud-forest, wishing that I
had brought a machete, wiping the rain from my eyes and the perspiration from my
face, I was wondering how I had got into this mess. The flora was lush, the tree
canopies high and with multiple shades of green; the birds noisy, and wind
blowing through the myriad of leaves completing the overwhelming presence of
the forest. We were deep into a jungle, periodic glimpses through the vegetation
showed hills covered by flax, a thick and useless crop now that the
ecologically-inclined planet has moved to plastic. It was getting dark, and
only the cynical laughter of the mynah birds penetrated the encroaching
darkness.
The St. Helenian Cloud Forest on its side
Of course, by simply turning round and walking a hundred
yards back down the riverbank, we reached a bridge and our 4WD Toyota ready to
drive us back along the road to town, a town that was on the coast, and about 2
kilometres as the crow (or a mynah bird) would fly. But this is the extraordinary
contradiction of St. Helena.
It is an island with a diameter of approximately eight
kilometres and the widest point. Cutting across the island, one moves from arid
desert to lush pastoral land to heavier flora to cloud forest and back along
this same spectrum until one reaches the arid coastline once more.
The Arid Coast and the Lake District
The Gentle Inland
I have absolutely no idea how this happens, but can only surmise
that it is a function of the island’s
volcanic heritage, its consequential rugged (and unutterably gorgeous)
topography and the mystical powers of wind/sun/rain on this isolated piece of
land. Whatever the cause, St. Helena offers a wider variety of landscapes
within a small region than one could dream possible.
A Malay Rubber Plant; try putting this next to the one
in your house to encourage it a little.
One drives through Arizona, and turns a corner into the
English Lake District, complete with period houses that would make Jane Austen
sigh contentedly. Continue around the
next corner and pass quickly through the Rwandan highlands to Southern France, and
finally, on the last kilometre drive down a Faroese Valley to the Arizona
coastline. At least, it would be how an Arizonan coast might look if it were
not landlocked.
The island is really a paradise for walkers, and there
are about twenty different, well-mapped and adequately signed walking paths;
from “difficult” challenges, walking along the spine of land linking two major
peaks with one foot on each slope, to “easy” walks through the gentle, pastoral
countryside there are outings to suit all.
A weird and wonderful grove of hardwood trees
It is a strange countryside in many ways because although
there are animals, and the normal atmosphere of the “countryside”, there is
little activity. Although there are cows, all milk is imported; there are
goats, and have been since the Portuguese introduced them in the 1500s, but not
an ounce of chevre; there are fields,
but limited vegetables. This lack of agricultural activity is changing slowly,
and new efforts are evident. The lack of production is variously explained by “EU
regulations”, “UK Government disinterest”, “difficult land to work” and so on;
there will be, as always, a grain of truth in each of these problems, but one would
think that a remote, apparently fertile and hungry land would have come up with
more activity; hopefully they will.
One would, at an amateur glance, feel that there is
opportunity to rework some of the flax fields and find a suitable eco-market
for the twine produced, and that some cottage industries producing local
cheeses and fruit would be successful. The coffee from the island, a direct
descendant of the Yemeni beans introduced in 1715, and utterly delicious,
should command high prices from the world’s coffee aficionados. There must be
more to the tale, but one would imagine that in addition to the tourists that
the new airport will accommodate, there is room for exporting some high-value
products from St. Helena, and the development of a strong brand to represent
St. Helenian products.
An embryonic dairy industry
It is an exciting destination in many ways, and the
potential for cottage industry evolution is wonderful to see. One can look to
the Orkney Islands to see how a remote community can build a global identity
for their locally produced jewelry to see a path from now to then; opportunities
are there, and the great positive is that they are available to all without
heavy investment requirements.
Building the brand of St. Helena for tourism development
is important; by simultaneously developing the brand to accommodate the
products that will now find a market from this unique and mysterious
destination is even more important.
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