The laurels hug this landscape, bending to follow the contours of its rocky outcrops. They are the place where the mist meets the mountain, sea encrusted with sky, old watchers of the wind, where moss drenched branches greet the clouds. 

This article has been published with Resurgence and the Ecologist, 2024

This island with its dramatic coastlines, rugged mountains, dense undergrowth and ancient forest ecosystem had me completely. The Laurisilva in Madeira  is the last remains of a 20 million year old forest, populated by several endemic trees but predominantly the Laurels (deep time cousin of bay). 

This is as much a love letter as it is a record of Madeira. It’s hard not to offer up your heart to these trees, this island, its natural beauty and abundance spilling over at the seams. A love potion for the ecologically inclined. Not just the stuff of fairy tales, but of dark dreams too. Towering cliffs greet rough waves, giving way to misty wind swept hilltops. Gnarled, twisted branches wait as if a murder, ghostly figure or scandalous love affair might take place any moment. 

However currently, Heathcliff is nowhere to be seen. It’s the closest thing to winter here when I arrive. To someone who grew up in Scotland, it feels like a temperate summer. As I write this, I’m sat at the crest of a peak, watching the mountains emerge, cloaked in cloud, as the sun forces their retreat back to the sea. (The north east side of this island). Each time I hike, the words come easily. As a result, almost the entirety of this has been written above an altitude of 1500m.

If like you are obsessed, like myself with plants, then arriving in Madeira feels like landing in some kind of bespoke heaven. With more endemic species than you can shake a stick at, it turns any ecologist into a child again, picks them up from school and drops them off right in the heart of the candy shop. As if a lucid dream, there are many familiar friends, plant traits and families I have come to know so well but each with slight nuances. Like a good friend who’s had a drastic haircut. A dandelion with a trunk that will grow taller than your head, sorrel with shorter broader leaves, tree heather, a woody steamed member of the carrot family, tall enough to meet you at eye level, a much larger cousin of plantain.  

All these incredibly rare and unique endemics, huddle together in on this red rocky slice of the archipelago. It is common for islands to have many endemics, their isolation from the rest of the world providing a safe haven for diverse ecologies to flourish, new seeds donated by migratory birds, given the gift of time and solace. However this island really takes the (Madeira)cake. Madeira managed to escape the ice during the last ice age so has played safe house for many plants that would otherwise have been lost in time. Now 30% of all naturalised and indigenous species are endemic (only existing here). 

The Laurisilva, home of these endemics literally translates to ‘Laurel Forest’. Laurel referring to the endemic species of bay, the parent plant which homes these trees. Madeira translates to ‘wood’ a signifier to just how central these trees are to the history of this island. Their story is both heavy and beautiful. New tree species outcompete the laurels growing faster and taller, deforestation, tourism and regular wildfires also pose new threats. Forest once covered the whole island, now it remains in just 20%, of which only 12% is native Laurisilva. 

I visited Raimundo Quintal, a local academic and founder of grassroots organisation Friends of Funchal who are working with Madeira’s natural ecosystems to restore segments of the Laurisilva. 

Since 2001, in Santo do Serra this group has been working to repopulate the laurels. They rarely actually plant any Laurels, ‘the laurels plant themselves’ Raimundo tells me. I notice all the young saplings that are appearing everywhere. It seems this forest know how to regrow itself, it just needs the time and space to do so. The eucalyptus which have swiftly taken to Madeira soils often get a bad reputation. The eucalyptus here are not the enemy. They are being thinned but a C shape protecting the exterior will be kept, they provide a vital wind break to these blustery peaks, protecting the other trees. They also do the Labour of holding together when soil becomes loose shingle that is so important here. Ernst Gotsch, who has pioneered Sintropic agriculture techniques in Brazil, marks that the management of these species are the problem, people, not the plants.

A volunteer describes the fires if 2014 which burned one of their sites to the ground. I can feel the weight of it making the air think like treacle and I see the heaviness in the hearts of those who cared for that forest. Many such as Ines have been coming for over 20 years. They have nurtured these trees and watched them grow from saplings. They have grown to love the forest. It reminds me of words indigenous plant scientist Robin Wall Krimmer “You cannot save what you do not love, and we cannot love what we do not know”. To save our forests, first we must come to know them again. Perhaps this is the necessary missing ingredient, to remember that we too are creatures of sun sea and soil.