W
ith their elephantine looks, Africa’s
baobab trees are a wonder of nature.
They are the world’s oldest flowering
plants — or angiosperm — and can live
for more than 2,000 years. Unlike hardwood trees with
solid, ringed trunks, baobabs are fibrous and retain
tens of thousands of gallons of water, much like an
enormous succulent plant. But they are under threat:
in 2011 the world’s oldest known baobab — a 2,450-
year-old tree in Zimbabwe named Panke — collapsed
under its own weight. In 2018 a Romanian-led team
of international scientists discovered that most of the
oldest and largest baobab trees had died in recent
years. They believe their sudden demise is due to
drought and desertification, linked to climate change.
To capture the majesty of Africa’s baobabs and alert the
world to their plight, the American photographer Beth
Moon travelled to Madagascar — where the country’s
largest living baobab, a sacred tree named Tsitakakoike
(top left), collapsed in 2018 — then on to Senegal,
Botswana and South Africa for her new book, Baobab n
Baobab by Beth Moon is published by Abbeville Press at £36
Previous pages: animals
graze around otherworldly
baobabs near Ankoabe,
southwest MadagascarRight: Madagascar’s biggest
baobab, the sacred tree known
as Tsitakakoike, collapsed
towards the end of 2018Below: the towering giants of
the Avenue of the Baobabs in
Morondava, Madagascar, where
trees reach 100ft in heightBelow right: a pair of baobabs
known as Les Amoureux
(the Lovers) that have grown
together in Morondava30 • The Sunday Times Magazine