When Charles Darwin set sail aboard HMS Beagle for Ascension Island from the nearby volcanic island of St. Helena, the locals set his expectations quite low:
“We know we live on a rock, but the poor people of Ascension live on a cinder.”
Seven years later, Darwin’s friend, botanist Joseph Hooker, called in on Ascension Island after sailing around Antarctica aboard HMS Erebus and Terror — and started terra-forming the island.:
Ascension was a strategic base for the Royal Navy. Originally set up to keep a watchful eye on the exiled emperor Napoleon on nearby St Helena, it was a thriving waystation at the time of Hooker’s visit.
However, the big problem that impeded further expansion of this imperial outpost was the supply of fresh water.
Ascension was an arid island, buffeted by dry trade winds from southern Africa. Devoid of trees at the time of Darwin and Hooker’s visits, the little rain that did fall quickly evaporated away.
Egged on by Darwin, in 1847 Hooker advised the Royal Navy to set in motion an elaborate plan. With the help of Kew Gardens – where Hooker’s father was director – shipments of trees were to be sent to Ascension.
The idea was breathtakingly simple. Trees would capture more rain, reduce evaporation and create rich, loamy soils. The “cinder” would become a garden.
So, beginning in 1850 and continuing year after year, ships started to come. Each deposited a motley assortment of plants from botanical gardens in Europe, South Africa and Argentina.
Soon, on the highest peak at 859m (2,817ft), great changes were afoot. By the late 1870s, eucalyptus, Norfolk Island pine, bamboo, and banana had all run riot.