Baobab & Marula – New Solutions to Global Warming and Food Security

While global warming is accelerating, the green transition is being replaced by a new armament race in Europe and USA. At the same time, Amazonian rainforests and the boreal forest zone are turning from carbon sinks to new sources of carbon dioxide.

Luckily, two incredible African trees might still save us from a climate chaos.

Baobab (Adansonia digitata) and marula (Sclerocarya spp) can become large trees even in arid conditions where
nothing else grows well. Baobab and marula cannot burn in forest fires, and they are extremely resistant to insect pests
and plant diseases.

Both trees produce large amounts of nutritious and popular food and could be planted sparsely on vast areas of land without changing local land-use patterns.

Largest baobabs measured by French and British during the colonial period were 18 or 20 meters in diameter. Baobabs and marulas could, within half a century, absorb a huge amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

This would also benefit food security. Nutritive value of baobab fruit is two times higher than that of avocado and a middle-sized marula typically produces half a ton of fruit in a year. One half of the fruit is edible and the other half consists of stones whose energy value is close to that of coal.

The Baorula Network is an informal coalition of African and European universities, research centers, non-govern-mental organizations and environmental activists interested in promoting the large-scale planting of baobab and marula – and other neglected African tree species – as an important partial solution to the world’s pressing problems.