Morocco's cedars threatened by climate change.

June 15, 2015 In Morocco the effects of climate change are showing, as Cedar trees which are native to the country are now in decline. The decline is also fueled by illegal logging as well as Barbary monkeys, which can’t seem to stop chewing the tree’s bark and new stumps. With cedar forests covering thousands of hectares of the Atlas Mountains, the Moroccan government is putting plans in place to protect these ancient trees.

Abdeladim El Hafi, Morocco’s High Commissioner for Water, Forests and Anti-desertification said plans are in place to tackle the risks of climate change.

“By 2100, it is expected that there will be radical changes both in temperature and in rainfall which imposes on us to have a reorganization of the environmental system for cedar trees that would have change completely. When we know that cedar trees could not be exploited before the age of 200 years, we have to take into account the ecological time. That is what we do to face this problematic situation and that is why all what we plant now takes into account the climate changes that will happen in one hundred years,”

Mohamed Ouchane , the deputy chairman of Gouraud Cedar Association of mineral stones, believes that a group effort is needed to preserve the forest, and has asked that everyone involved directly and indirectly must treat these trees as family. Yes this is totally doable.