Sokotra Island, A Dream In The World... A Garden In The Indian Ocean

The unique character makes Socotra a potential candidate for a World Heritage site or a MAB Biosphere reserve. The Yemeni island of Socotra presents an opportunity and challenge for the mankind. It is the year of tourism Sokotra is also Yemen’s best kept secret of a tourist destination.

Positioned near the southern gateway to the Red Sea, already close to the Somali coast, lies the island of Socotra. It stands there as the guardian of the African Horn and offers peace and tranquility. Known since ancient times as "The Island of Waiting" for better sailing conditions, a transshipment center for goods, it connected ports of the Persian Gulf with East Africa. The island lays on the route for ships heading towards Aden from East Africa and India.

Socotra is Yemen without guns and the curved daggers. The monsoon rains brings almost a medieval atmosphere of the past, when elegant Arab dhows loaded glittering goods and sailed from Sokotra to and from Zanzibar and to India and further. Arabs, Africans, the Greeks and Portuguese, all arrived to the island at different times and left their imprint. When the army of Alexander the Great conquered the Island of Socotra, it was reported that Indians were living on the island. Periplus of the Erythrean Sea also mentions that Indian ships used to stop over at Socotra from the east African coast to Yemen on their way to and from India. The island capital Hadibou is a lovely and colorful place. Houses build out of coral, straight roofs and covered with palm trees. Women with half covered faces, dressed in home made dresses out of glittering materials, hurry to the nearby dukkan for provisions.

Socotra is the largest in a small archipelago of four Islands which include the Brothers Samhah and Drasa and Abd AlKuri. Lying as it does in the Indian Ocean, on a mid-oceanic volcanic ridge 500 km south east of Mukalla, and 240 km from the coast of Somalia. It is roughly 130 km long and 40 km wide, and an area of 3650 square kilometers. Its name may derived from Arabic "Suqs Qutra", meaning the market of dragons blood – a reference to the resin of its most famous tree species, or perhaps from a Sanskrit term for the "Abode of the blest".

"Dioscorida is very large but desert and marshy, having rivers in it and crocodiles and many snakes and great lizards, of which the flesh is eaten and the fat melted and used instead of olive oil"

is the oldest documented information about this mysterious piece of land opposite the eastern Horn of Africa in "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea", a shipping manual written in the first century AD by an unknown Greek shipping agent. The crocodiles and giant lizards mentioned were never found on Sokotra. But it is the natural history of Socotra that is likely one of the most fascinating in the world. Their unique character is related to its geological history. It is believed that the separation of Socotra from the African mainland occurred in the middle of the liocene. The high degree of endemism in the flora and fauna is the result of this long isolation from the mainland of Africa. Two thousand years after Socotra is still listed among least explored parts of the world.

As you near Socotra across a wallowing white-capped sea, the clouds are rearing over the island. It is its vegetation which is of great interest to botanist. Over 815 species of plants have now been recorded, and around 250 of these are endemic, exist nowhere else in the world. There are seven species of frankincense trees on the islands. It comprises one of the richest island floras in the world. Equally fascinating is the island fauna, with an exceptional number of endemics. More than 100 bird species have been recorded of which 31 are known, or supposed, to breed. During the time of the south west monsoon from April to October, the island is often cut off completely. The Haghir mountains in the northwest of the island rises up to 1519m, is barren with granite slopes and pinnacles and montane thicket, woody herbs and liches. The foothills of the mountains display a shrubby landscape with incense trees and unusual bottle-trunked trees. The species for which is the island is renowned, the dragons blood tree and which is quite widespread in evergreen woodlands over the center and east of the island and it the dominant tree in some areas. Much of the island is ringed by sheer 500 m cliffs, cormorant – haunted and looking as if they have been displaced, usually compared to an umbrella blown inside out --and a large number of dolphins and whales. A language without script, "Suqutri", which has its roots in the Mahra area, a present day Governorate of Republic Yemen, on the southern Yemen coast.

THE ISLAND THAT VANISHED
A little under seven hundred year ago, five warship upped anchors in the port of Aden and set off south by east. Watching them leave was the ruler of Yemen at the time, Sultan Al-Muizz. This expedition would hardly rate a mention in the annals of Yemeni military history. Its goal was the distant Yemeni island of Socotra – a peaceful land of shepherds and camel breeders But when the little fleet returned some thee weeks later, its commander approached the Sultan with a look of consternation.

Well?….demanded alMuizz.
My lord it is…. It’s difficult to explain…. We were in sight of Socotra and then it just disappeared, vanished!

The warships, according to a near contemporary historian, had spent five days quartering the sea, and found no trace of the island. The Socotris, he says, had seen the fleet approaching and magicked their island out of sight. Talk was that the Socotris have the power of controlling the winds. Sokotra, in fact, is like no place on earth. Even now the whole island, with the exception of some area in the more exploited coastal plains, is still dominated by a traditional balance between man and the environment and which has been probably stable for the past 2000 years. The population of Socotra is estimated at about 80.0000. The population interior is composed of subsistence farmers and pastoralists, while coastal dwellers engage mostly in fishing and trade. However, principles of cooperation, self- help and community labor are well established within the Socotri community.

Socotra is a great opportunity and a challenge for all. The Socotris will have to perform a delicate balancing act, weighing potential benefits against potential losses to their unique heritage. Still, they seem to have the ultimate defense. It doesn’t seem totally impossible that they could or – would - make their island vanish.

Unusual glittering sea and characteristic long Sokotri boats. Blue mountains and mountain tops raped into thick white clouds. The Haghir Mountain now glistering white and alpine, into the shapes of a Chinese water color. Here at the Sokotri shores, the Arab sea turns over to the Indian Ocean. A week later in Sanaa, Soktora seems like a place on another planet. But when I close my eyes, I now often dream about the magic island, where rare plants grow, and trees have the shape of umbrellas, wells of sweet water, and roses growing wild. At the end, I seemed to have spoiled it all. When asked, from where comes their spark of life, their answer carried the wisdom of eternity:

A breath blown from the vastly Ocean deeps.
And then blown back to those same Ocean deeps again.

HOW TO GET THERE
Occupying a stable position 400 km off the southern coast of Yemen and the nearest Horn of Africa.
Is the largest of the Yemeni islands.
Population is over 80.000.
The Island of Sokotra is administered the Governorate of Aden.
Yemenia, the Yemeni national airlines flies every Friday from Sanaa to Hadibou, the Island capital.

FURTHER READING
A naturalist in Socotra, Culture and ecosystem in a delicate balance by Dr. Wolfgang Wranik, University of Rostock, in Yemen Observer, Sanaa, Yemen, issue 1st January, 2005

Socotra Conservation and Development Program Coordination unit
Guides, oversees and supports the implementation of all conservation and development in the Socotra Archipelago